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SPEECHES of 

Senator Warren G. Hardin| 

of Ohio 
Republican Candidate for President 

From His oAcceptance of the 
TSlomination to October i, igio 



Issued by 
THE REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE 



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REPUBLICAN PLATFORM 



1^ 1920 

The Republican Party, assembled in representative national conven- 
tion, reaffirms its unyielding devotion to the Constitution of the United 
- States, and to the guarantees of civil, political and religious liberty there- 
\ in contained. It will resist all attempts to overthrow the foundations of 
the go^'ernment or to weaken the force of its controlling principles and 
ideals, whether these attempts be made in the form of international 
policy or domestic agitation. 

For seven years the national government has been controlled by the 
Democratic Party. During that period a war of unparalleled magnitude 
has shaken the foundations of civilization, decimated the population of 
Europe, and left in its train economic misery and suffering second only 
to the war itself. 

The outstanding features of the Democratic administration have been 
complete unpreparedness for war and complete unpreparedness for peace. 
Unpreparedness For War 

Inexcusable failure to make timely preparation is the chief indict- 
ment agaist the Democratic administration in the conduct of the war. 
Had not our Associates protected us, both on land and sea, during the 
first twelve months of our participation, and furnished us to the very 
day of the Armistice with munitions, planes and artillery, this failure 
would have been punished with disaster. t<: directly resulted in unneces- 
sary losses to our gallant troops, in the imperilment of victory itself, and 
in an enormous waste of public funds literally poured into the breach 
created by gross neglect. Today it is reflected in our huge tax burden and 
in the high cost of living 

Unpreparedness For Peace 

Peace found the Administration as unprepared for peace as war found 
it unprepared for war. The vital needs of the country demanded the early 
and c^atematic return to a peace-time basis. 

This called for vision, leadership and intelligent planning. All three 
\ have been lacking. While the country has been left to shift for itself, the 
•■j' Government has continued on a war-time basis. The Administration 

has not demobilized the army of place holders. It continued a method of 
financing which was indefensible during the period of reconstruction. It 
has used legislation passed to meet the emergency of war to continue its 
arbitrary and inquisitorial control over the life of the people in time of 
peace, and to carry confusion into industrial life. Under the despot's plea 



of necessity of superior wisdom, executive usurpation of legislative and 
judicial functions still undermines our institutions. Eighteen months 
after the Armistice, with its war-time powers unabridged, its war-time 
departments undischarged, its war-time army of place holders still mobil- 
ized, the Administration continues to flounder helplessly. 

The demonstrated incapacity of the Democratic Party has destroyed 
public confidence, weakened the authority of the government, and pro- 
duced a feeling of distrust and hesitation so universal as to increase enor- 
mously the difficulties of readjustment and to delay the return to normal 
conditions. 

Never has our Nation been confronted with graver problems. The 
people are entitled to know in definite terms how the parties propose 
solving these problems. To that end, the Republican Party declares its 
policies and program to be as follows: 

Constitutional Government 

We undertake to end executive autocracy and to restore to the people 
their constitutional government. 

The policies herein declared will be carried out by the federal and 
state governments, each acting within its constitutional powers. 

Foreign Relations 

The foreign policy of the Administration has been founded upon no 
principle and directed by no definite conception of our nation's rights 
and obligations. It has been humiliating to America and irritating to 
other nations, with the result that after a period of unexampled sacrifice, 
our motives are suspected, our moral influence impaired, and our Govern- 
ment stands discredited and friendless among the nations of the world. 

We favor a liberal and generous foreign policy founded upon definite 
moral and political principles, characterized by a clear understanding of 
and a firm adherence to our own rights, and unfailing respect for the 
rights of others. We should afford full and adequate protection to the 
life, liberty, property and -all international rights of every American cit- 
izen, and should require a proper respect for the American flag; but we 
should be equally careful to manifest a just regard for the rights of other 
nations. A scrupulous observance of our international engagements when 
lawfully assumed is essential to our honor and self-respect, and the re- 
spect of other nations. Subject to a due regard for our international ob- 
ligations, we should leave our country free to develop its civilization 
along lines most conducive to the happiness and welfare of its people, 
and to cast its influence on the side of justice and right should occasion 
require. 

(a) Mexico 

The ineffective policy of the present Administration in Mexican mat- 



ters has been largely responsible for the continued loss of American lives 
in that country and upon our border; for the enormous loss of American 
and foreign property ; for the lowering of American standards of morality 
and social relations with Mexicans, and for the bringing of American 
ideals of justice, national honor and political integrity into contempt and 
ridicule in Mexico and throughout the world. 

The policy of wordy, futile written protests against the acts of Mex- 
ican officials, explained the following day by the President himself as be- 
ing meaningless and not intended to be considered seriously, or enforced, 
has but added in degree to that contempt, and has earned for us the 
sneers and jeers of Mexican bandits, and added insult upon insult against 
our national honor and dignity. 

We should not recognize any Mexican government, unless it be a 
responsible government, willing and able to give sufficient guarantees 
that the lives and property of American citizens are respected and pro- 
tected; that wrongs will be promptly corrected and just compensation 
will be made for injury sustained. The Republican Party pledges itself 
to a consistent, firm and effective policy towards Mexico that shall en- 
force respect for the American flag and that shall protect the rights of 
American citizens lawfully in Mexico to security of life and enjoyment 
of property, in accordance with established principles of international 
law and our treaty rights. 

The Republican Party is a sincere friend of the Mexican people. In 
its insistence upon the maintenance of order for the protection of Ameri- 
can citizens within its borders a great service will be rendered the Mexi- 
can people themselves; for a continuation of present conditions means 
disaster to their interests and patriotic aspirations. 

(b) Mandate For Armenia 

We condemn President Wilson for asking Congress to empower him 
to accept a mandate for Armenia. We commend the Republican Senate 
for refusing the President's request to empower him to accept the man- 
date for Armenia. The acceptance of such mandate would throw the 
United States into the very maelstrom of European quarrels. According 
to the estimate of the Harbord Commission, organized by authority of 
President Wilson, we would be called upon to send 59,000 American boys 
to police Armenia and to expend $276,000,000 in the first year and 
$756,000,000 in five years. This estimate is made upon the basis that we 
would have only roving bands to fight ; but in case of serious trouble with 
the Turks or with Russia, a force exceeding 200,000 would be necessary. 

No more striking illustration can be found of President Wilson's dis- 
regard of the lives of American boys or of American interests. 

We deeply sympathize with the people of Armenia and stand ready 



to help them in all proper ways, but the Republican Party will oppose 
now and hereafter the acceptance of a mandate for any country in Europe 
or Asia. 

(c) League Of Nations 

The Republican Party stands for agreement among the nations to 
preserve the peace of the world. We believe that such an international 
association must be based upon international justice, and must provide 
methods which shall maintain the rule of public right by the development 
of law and the decision of impartial courts, and which shall secure in- 
stant and general international conference whenever, peace shall be 
threatened by political action, so that the nations pledged to do and in- 
sist upon what is just and fair may exercise their influence and power for 
the prevention of war. 

We believe that all this can be done without the compromise of nation- 
al independence, without depriving the people of the United States in 
advance of the right to determine for themselves what is just and fair 
when the occasion arises, and without involving them as participants and 
not as peace-makers in a multitude of quarrels, the merits of which they 
are unable to judge. 

The covenant signed by the President at Paris failed signally to ac- 
complish this great purpose, and contains stipulations, not only intoler- 
able for an independent people, but certain to produce the injustice, hos- 
tility, and controversy among nations which it proposed to prevent. 

That covenant repudiated, to a degree wholly unnecessary and un- 
justifiable, the time-honored policies in favor of peace declared by Wash- 
ington, Jefferson, and Monroe, and pursued by all American administra- 
tions for more than a century, and it ignored the universal sentiment of 
America for generations past in favor of international law and arbitra- 
tion, and it rested the hope of the future upon mere expediency and nego- 
tiation. 

The unfortunate insistence of the President upon having his own 
way, without any change and without any regard to the opinions of a 
majority of the Senate, which shares with him in the treaty-making 
power, and the President's demand that the Treaty should be ratified 
without any modification, created a situation in which Senators were 
required to vote upon their consciences and their oaths according to their 
judgment against the Treaty as it was presented, or submit to the com- 
mands of a dictator in a matter where the authority and the responsi- 
bility under the Constitution were theirs, and not his. 

The senators performed their duty faithfully. We approve their con- 
duct and honor their courage and fidelity. And we pledge the coming 
Republican administration to such agreements with the other nations of 



the world as shall meet the full duty of America to civilization and hu- 
manity, in accordance with American ideals, and without surrendering 
the right of the American people to exercise its judgment and its power 
in favor of justice and peace. 

Congress and Reconstruction 

Despite the unconstitutional and dictatorial course of the President 
and the partisan obstruction of the Democratic Congressional minority, 
the Republican majority has enacted a program of constructive legisla 
tion which in great part, however, has been nullified by the vindictive 
vetoes of the President. 

The Republican Congress has met the problems presented by the 
Administration's unpreparedness for peace. It has repealed the greater 
part of the vexatious war legislation. It has enacted a Transportation 
Act making possible the rehabilitation of the railroad systems of the 
country, the operation of which under the present Democratic Adminis- 
tration, has been wasteful, extravagant and inefficient in the highest 
degree. The Transportation Act made provision for the peaceful settle- 
ment of wage disputes, partially nullified, however, by the President's 
delay in appointing the Wage Board created by the act. This delay pre- 
cipitated the outlaw railroad strike. 

We stopped the flood of public treasure, recklessly poured into the 
lap of an inept Shipping Board, and laid the foundations for the creation 
of a great merchant marine ; we took from the incompetent Democratic 
Administration the administration of the telegraph and telephone lines 
of the country and returned them to private ownership; we reduced the 
cost of postage and increased the pay of the postal employes — the poor- 
est paid of all public servants; we provided pensions for superannuated 
and retired civil servants; and for an increase in pay of soldiers and 
sailors. We reorganized the army on a peace footing, and provided for 
the maintenance of a powerful and efficient nr'vy. 

The Republican Congress established by law a permanent Woman's 
Bureau in the Department of Labor; we submitted to the country the 
constitutional amendment for woman suffrage, and furnished twenty- 
nine of the thirty-five legislatures which have ratified it to date. 

Legislation for the relief of the consumers of print paper, for the ex- 
tension of the powers of the government under the Food Control Act, 
for broadening the scope of the War Risk Insurance Act, better provision 
for the dwindling number of aged veterans of the Civil War and for the 
better support of the maimed and injured of the Great War, and for mak- 
ing practical the Vocational Rehabilitation Act, has been enacted by the 
Republican Congress. 

We passed an oil leasing and water power bill to unlock for the public 



good the great pent-up resources of the country; we have sought to check 
the profligacy of the Administration, to realize upon the assets of the 
government and to husband the revenues derived from taxation. The 
Republicans in Congress have been responsible for cuts in the estimates 
for government expenditure of nearly $3,000,000,000, since the signing 
of the Armistice. 

We enacted a national executive budget law; we strengthened the 
Federal Reserve Act to permit banks to lend needed assistance to farm- 
ers; we authorized financial incorporations to develop export trade; and 
finally, amended the rules of the Senate and House, which will reform 
evils in procedure and guarantee more efficient and responsible govern- 
ment. 

Agriculture 

The farmer is the backbone of the Nation. National greatness and 
economic independence demand a population distributed between in- 
dustry and the farm, and sharing on equal terms the prosperity which is 
wholly dependent upon the efforts of both. Neither can prosper at the 
expense of the other without inviting joint disaster. 

The crux of the present agricultural condition lies in prices, labor and 
credit. 

The Republican Party believes that this condition can be improved 
by: practical and adequate farm representation in the appointment of 
governmental officials and commissions; the right to form co-operative 
associations for marketing their products, and protection against dis- 
crimination; the scientific study of agricultural prices and farm produc- 
tion costs, at home and abroad, with a view to reducing the frequency of 
abnormal fluctuations; the uncensored publication of such reports; the 
authorization of associations for the extension of personal credit; a na- 
tional inquiry on the co-ordination of rail, water and motor transporta- 
tion with adequate facilities for receiving, handling and marketing food; 
the encouragement of our export trade; an end to unnecessary price- 
fixing and ill-considered efforts arbitrarily to reduce prices of farm pro- 
ducts which invariably result to the disadvantage both of producer and 
consumer; and the encouragement of the production and importation of 
fertilizing material and of its extensive use. 

The Federal Farm Loan Act should be so administered as to facilitate 
the acquisition of farm land by those desiring to become owners and 
proprietors and thus minimize the evils of farm tenantry, and to furnish 
such long-time credits as farmers may need to finance adequately their 
larger and long time production operations. 

Industrial Relations 

There are two different conceptions of the relations of capital and 



labor. The one is contractual and emphasizes the diversity of interests 
of employer and employee. The other is that of co-partnership in a com- 
mon task. 

We recognize the justice of collective bargaining as a means of pro- 
moting good will, establishing closer and more harmonious relations be- 
tween employers and employees, and realizing the true ends of industrial 
justice. 

The strike or the lockout, as a means of settling industrial disputes, 
inflicts such loss and suffering on the community as to justify government 
initiative to reduce its frequency and limit its consequences. 

We deny the right to strike against the government; but the rights 
and interests of all government employees must be safeguarded by im- 
partial laws and tribunals. 

In public utilities we favor the establishment of an impartial tribunal 
to make an investigation of the facts and to render a decision to the end 
that there may be no organized interruption of service necessary to the 
lives, health and welfare of the people. The decisions of the tribunals 
should be morally but not legally binding, and an informed public senti- 
ment be relied on to secure their acceptance. The tribunals, however, 
should refuse to accept jurisdiction except for the purpose of investiga- 
tion, as long as the public service be interrupted. For public utilities we 
favor the type of tribunal provided for in the Transportation Act of 1920. 

In private industries we do not advocate the principle of compulsory 
arbitration, but we favor impartial commissions and better facilities for 
voluntary mediation, conciliation and arbitration, supplemented by that 
full publicity which will enlist the influence of an aroused public opinion. 
The Government should take the initiative in inviting the establishment 
of tribunals or commissions for the purpose of voluntary arbitration and 
of investigation of disputed issues. 

We demand the exclusion from interstate commerce of the products 
of convict labor. 

National Economy 

A Republican Congress reduced the estimates submitted by the Ad" 
ministration almost three billion dollars. Greater economies could have 
been effected had it not been for the stubborn refusal of the Administra- 
tion to co-operate with Congress in an economy program. The universal 
demand for an executive budget is a recognition of the incontrovertible 
fact that that leadership and sincere assistance on the part of the Execu- 
tive departments are essential to effective economy and constructive 
retrenchment. 

The Overman Act invested the President of the United States with 
all the authority and power necessary to restore the Federal Government 



to a normal peace basis and to reorganize, retrench and demobilize. The 
dominant fact is that eighteen months after the Armistice, the United 
States Government is still on a war-time basis, and the expenditure pro- 
gram of the Executive reflects war-time extravagance rather than rigid 
peace-time economy. 

As an example of the failure to retrench which has characterized the 
post-war policy of the Administration, we cite the fact that not including 
the War and Navy Departments, the executive departments and other 
establishments at Washington actually record an increase subsequent to 
the Armistice of 2,18-4 employees. The net decrease in pay-roll costs con- 
tained in the 1921 demands submitted by the Administration is only one 
per cent, under that of 1920. The annual expenses of the Federal Govern- 
ment can be reduced hundreds of millions of dollars without impairing 
the efficiency of the public service. 

We pledge ourselves to a carefully planned readjustment to a peace- 
time basis and to a policy of rigid economy, to the better co-ordination 
of departmental activities, to the elimination of unnecessary officials and 
employees, and to the raising of the standard of individual efficiency. 
The Executive Budget 

We congratulate the Republican Congress on the enactment of a law 
providing for the establishment of an Executive Budget as a necessary 
instrument for a sound and business-like administration of the national 
finances; and we condemn the veto of the President which defeated this 
great financial reform. 

Reorganization of Federal Departments and Bureaus 

We advocate a thorough investigation of the present organization 
of the Federal departments and bureaus, with a view to securing consoli- 
dation, a more business-like distribution of functions, the elimination of 
duplication, delays and over-lapping of work, and the establishment of 
an up-to-date and efficient administrative organization. 
War Powers of the President 

The President clings tenaciously to his autocratic war-time powers. 
His veto of the Resolution declaring peace and his refusal to sign the bill 
repealing war-time legislation, no longer necessary, evidence his deter- 
mination not to restore to the Nation and to the States the form of govern- 
ment provided for by the Constitution. This usurpation is intolerable and 
deserves the severest condemnation. 

Taxation 

The burden of taxation imposed upon the American people is stagger- 
ing; but in presenting a true statement of the situation we must face the 
fact that, while the character of the taxes can and should be changed, an 
early reduction of the amount of revenue to be raised is not to be expected. 

8 



The next Republican administration will inherit from its Democratic 
predecessor a floating indebtedness of over three billion dollars, the 
prompt liquidation of which is demanded by sound financial considera- 
tions. Moreover, the whole fiscal policy of the Government must be deep- 
ly influenced by the necessity of meeting obligations in excess of five bil- 
lion dollars which mature in 1923. But sound policy equally demands 
the early accomplishment of that real reduction of the tax burden which 
may be achieved by substituting simple for complex tax laws and pro- 
cedure; prompt and certain determination of the tax liability for delay 
and uncertainty; tax laws which do not, for tax laws which do, excessively 
mulct the consumer or needlessly repress enterprise and thrift. 

We advocate the issuance of a simplified form of income return ; 
authorizing the Treasury Department to make changes in regulations 
effective only from the date of their approval ; empowering the Commis- 
sioner of Internal Revenue, with the consent of the taxpayer, to make 
final and conclusive settlements of tax claims and assessments barring 
fraud, and the creation of a Tax Board consisting of at least three repre- 
sentatives of the tax-paying public and the heads of the principal divisions 
of the Bureau of Internal Revenue to act as a standing committee on the 
simplification of forms, procedure and law, and to make recommenda- 
tions to the Congress. 

Banking and Currency 

The fact is that the war, to a great extent, was financed by a policy 
of inflation through certificate borrowing from the banks, and bonds 
issued at artificial rates sustained by the low discount rates established 
by the Federal Reserve Board. The continuance of this policy since the 
Armistice lays the Administration open to severe criticism. Almost up 
to the present time, the practices of the Federal Reserve Board as to 
credit control have been frankly dominated by the convenience of the 
Treasury. 

The results have been a greatly increased war cost, a serious loss to 
the millions of people who in good faith bought Liberty Bonds and 
Victory Notes at par, and extensive post-war speculation, followed today 
by a restricted credit for legitimate industrial expansion. As a matter 
of public policy, we urge all banks to give credit preference to essential 
industries. 

The Federal Reserve System should be free from political influence, 
which is quite as important as its independence of domination by finan- 
cial combinations. 

The High Cost of Living 

The prime cause of the "High Cost of Living" has been first and fore- 
most, a fifty per cent depreciation in the purchasing power of the dollar, 



due to a gross expansion of our currency and credit. Reduced produc- 
tion, burdensome taxation, swollen profits, and the increased demand 
for goods arising from a fictitious but enlarged buying power have been 
contributing causes in a greater or less degree. 

We condemn the unsound fiscal policies of the Democratic adminis- 
tration which have brought these things to pass, and their attempts to 
impute the consequences to minor and secondary causes. Much of the 
injury wrought is irreparable. There is no short way out, and we decline 
to deceive the people with vain promises or quack remedies. But as the 
political party that throughout its histor\' has stood for honest money 
and sound finance, we pledge ourselves to earnest and consistent attack 
upon the high cost of living by rigorous avoidance of further inflation in 
our government borrowing, by courageous and intelligent deflation of 
over-expanded credit and currency, by encouragement of heightened 
production of goods and services, by prevention of unreasonable profits, 
by exercise of public economy and stimulation of private thrift and by 
revision of war imposed taxes unsuited to peace-time economy. 

Profiteering 

We condemn the Democratic administration for failure impartially 
to enforce the anti-profiteering laws enacted by the Republican Congress. 

Railroads 

We are opposed to government ownership and operation or employee 
operation of the railroads. In view of the conditions prevailing in this 
country, the experience of the last two years, and the conclusions which 
may be fairly drawn from an observation of the transportation systems 
of other countries, it is clear that adequate transportation service both 
for the present and future can be furnished more certainly, economically 
and efficiently through private ownership and operation under proper 
regulation and control. 

There should be no speculative profit in rendering the service of trans- 
portation; but in order to do justice to the capital already invested in 
railway enterprises, to restore railway credit, to induce future investment 
at a reasonable rate, and to furnish enlarged facilities to meet the re- 
quirements of the constantly increasing development and distribution, 
a fair return upon the actual value of the railway property used in trans- 
portation should be made reasonably sure, and at the same time provide 
constant employment to those engaged in transportation service, with 
fair hours and favorable working conditions, at wages or compensation 
at least equal to those prevailing in similar lines of industry. 

We endorse the Transportation Act of 1920 enacted by the Republican 
Congress as a most constructive legislative achievement. 

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Waterways 

We declare it to be our policy to entrourage and develop water trans- 
portation servit:e and facilities in, connection with the commerce of the 
United States. 

Regulation of Industry and Commerce 

We approve in general the existing Federal legislation against mon- 
opoly and combinations in restraint of trade, but since the known cer- 
tainty of a law is the safety of all, we advocate such amendment as will 
provide American business men with better means of determining in ad- 
vance whether a proposed combination is or is not unlawful. The Federal 
Trade Commission, under a Democratic administration, has not accom- 
plished the purpose for which it was created. This Commission properly 
organized and its duties efficiently administered should afford protection 
to the public and legitimate business interests. There should be no perse- 
cution of honest business, but to the extent that circumstances warrant 
we pledge ourselves to strengthen the law against unfair practices. 

We pledge the party to an immediate resumption of trade relations 
with every nation with which we are at peace. 

International Trade and Tariff 

The uncertain and unsettled condition of international balances, the 
abnormal economic and trade situation of the world, and the impossibility 
of forecasting accurately even the near future, preclude the formulation 
of a definite program to meet conditions a year hence. But the Republi- 
can Party reaffirms its belief in the protective principle and pledges itself 
to a revision of the tariff as soon as conditions shall make it necessary for 
the preservation of the home market for American labor, agriculture and 
industry. 

Merchant Marine 

The national defense and our foreign commerce require a merchant 
marine of the best type of modern ship flying the American flag, manned 
by American seamen, owned by private capital, and operated by private 
energy. We endorse the sound legislation recently enacted by the Repub- 
lican Congress that will insure the promotion and maintenance of the 
American merchant marine. 

We favor the application of the Workmen's Compensation Acts to 
the merchant marine. 

We recommend that all ships engaged in coastwise trade and all ves- 
sels of the American merchant marine shall pass through the Panama 
Canal without payment of tolls. 

Immigration 

The standard of living and the standard of citizenship of a nation are 
its most precious possessions, and the preservation and elevation of those 

11 



standards is the first duty of our government. The immigration policy 
of the United States should be such as to insure that the number of for- 
eigners in the country at any time shall not exceed that which can be 
assimilated with reasonable rapidity, and to favor immigrants whose 
standards are similar to ours. 

The selective tests that are at present applied should be improved by 
requiring a higher physical standard, a more complete exclusion of mental 
defectives and of criminals, and a more effective inspection applied as 
near the source of immigration as possible, as well as at the port of entry. 
Justice to the foreigner and to ourselves demands provision for the guid- 
ance, protection and better economic distribution of our alien popula- 
tion. To facilitate government supervision, all aliens should be required 
to register annually until they become naturalized. 

The existing policy of the United States for the practical exclusion of 
Asiatic immigrants is sound, and should be maintained. . 

Naturalization 

There is urgent need of improvement in our naturalization law. No 
alien should become a citizen until he has become genuinely American, 
and adequate tests for determining the alien's fitness for American citi- 
zenship should be provided for by law. 

We advocate, in addition, the independent naturalization of married 
women. An American woman, resident in the United States, should not 
lose her citizenship by marriage to an alien. 

Free Speech and Alien Agitation 

We demand that every American citizen shall enjoy the ancient and 
constitutional right of free speech, free press and free assembly and the 
no less sacred right of the qualified voter to be represented by his duly 
chosen representatives; but no man may advocate resistance to the law, 
and no man may advocate violent overthrow of the government. 

Aliens within the jurisdiction of the United States are not entitled of 
right to liberty of agitation directed against the government or American 
institutions. 

Every government has the power to exclude and deport those aliens 
who constitute a real menace to its peaceful existence. But in view of the 
large numbers of people alTected by the immigration acts and in view of 
the vigorous malpractice of the Departments of Justice and Labor, an 
adequate public hearing before a competent administrative tribunal 
should be assured to all. 

Lynching 

We urge Congress to consider the most effective means to end lynch- 
ing in this country which continues to be a terrible blot on our American 
civilization. 

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Public Roads and Highways 

We favor liberal appropriations in co-operation with the states for 
the construction of highways, which will bring about a reduction in trans- 
portation costs, better marketing of farm products, improvement in rural 
postal delivery, as well as meet the needs of military defense. 

In determining the proportion of Federal aid for road construction 
among the states, the sums lost in taxation to the respective states by 
the setting apart of large portions of their area as forest reservations 
should be considered as a controlling factor. 

Conservation 

Conservation is a Republican policy. It began with the passage of the 
Reclamation Act signed by President Roosevelt. The recent passage of 
the coal, oil and phosphate leasing act by the Republican Congress and 
the enactment of the waterpower bill fashioned in accordance with the 
same principle, are consistent landmarks in the development of the con- 
servation of our national resources. We denounce the refusal of the Pres- 
ident to sign the waterpower bill, passed after ten years of controversy. 
The Republican Party has taken an especially honorable part in saving 
our national forests and in the effort to establish a national forest policy. 
Our most pressing conservation question relates to our forests. We are 
using our forest resources faster than they are being renewed. The result 
is to raise unduly the cost of forest products to consumers and especially 
farmers, who use more than half the lumber produced in America, and in 
the end to create a timber famine. The Federal Government, the states 
and private interests must unite in devising means to meet the menace. 

Reclamation 

We favor a fixed and comprehensive policy of reclamation to increase 
national wealth and production. 

We recognize in the development of reclamation through Federal 
action with its increase of production and taxable wealth a safeguard for 
the nation. 

We commend to Congress a policy to reclaim lands and the establish- 
ment of a fixed national policy of development of natural resources in 
relation to reclamation through the now designated government agencies. 

Army and Navy 
We feel the deepest pride in the fine courage, the resolute endurance, 
the gallant spirit of the officers and men of our army and navy in the 
World War. They were in all ways worthy of the best traditions of the 
nation's defenders, and we pledge ourselves to proper maintenance of the 
military and naval establishments upon which our national security and 
dignity depend. 

13 



The Service Men 

We hold in imperishable remembrance the valor and the patriotism 
of the soldiers and sailors of America who fought in the Great War for 
human liberty, and we pledge ourselves to discharge to the fullest the ob- 
ligations which a grateful nation justly should fulfill, in appreciation of 
the services rendered by its defenders on sea and on land. 

Republicans are not ungrateful. Throughout their history they have 
shown their gratitude toward the nation's defenders. Liberal legislation 
for the care of the disabled and infirm and their dependents has ever 
marked Republican policy toward the soldier and sailor of all the wars in 
which our country has participated. The present Congress has appropri- 
ated generously for the disabled of the World War. 

The amounts already applied and authorized for the fiscal year 1920- 
21 for this purpose reached the stupendous sum of $1,180,571,893. The 
legislation is significant of the party's purpose in generously caring for 
the maimed and disabled men of the recent war. 

Civil Service 

We renew our repeated declaration that the civil service law shall be 
thoroughly and honestly enforced and extended wherever practicable. 
The recent action of Congress in enacting a comprehensive civil service 
retirement law and in working out a comprehensive employment and 
wage policy that will guarantee equal and just treatment to the army of 
government workers, and in centralizing the administration of the new 
and progressive employment policy in the hands of the Civil Service Com- 
mission is worthy of all praise. 

Postal Service 

We condemn the present administration for its destruction of the 
efficiency of the postal service, and the telegraph and telephone service 
when controlled by the government and for its failure to properly com- 
pensate employees whose expert knowledge is essential to the proper con- 
duct of the affairs of the postal system. We commend the Republican 
Congress for the enactment of legislation increasing the pay of postal 
employees, who up to that time were the poorest paid in the government 
service. 

Woman Suflfrage 

We welcome women into full participation in the affairs of govern- 
ment and the activities of the Republican Party. We earnestly hope that 
Republican legislatures in states which have not yet acted on the Suffrage 
Amendment will ratify the amendment, to the end that all of the women 
of the nation of voting age may participate in the election of 1920, which 
is so important to the welfare of our country. 

14 



Social Progress 

The supreme duty of the nation is the conservation of human re- 
sources through an enlightened measure of social and industrial justice. 
Although the federal jurisdiction over social problems is limited, they 
affect the welfare and interest of the nation as a whole. We pledge the 
Republican Party to the solution of these problems through national and 
state legislation in accordance with the best progressive thought of the 
country. 

Education and Health 

We endorse the principle of Federal aid to the states for the purposes 
of vocational and agricultural training. 

Wherever Federal money is devoted to education, such education 
must be so directed as to awaken in the youth the spirit of America and 
a sense of patriotic duty to the United States. 

A thorough system of physical education for all children up to the 
age of nineteen, including adequate health supervision and instruction, 
would remedy conditions revealed by the draft and would add to the 
economic and industrial strength of the nation. National leadership and 
stimulation will be necessary to induce the states to adopt a wise system 
of physical training. 

The public health activities of the Federal government are scattered 
through numerous departments and bureaus, resulting in inefficiency 
duplication and extravagance. We advocate a greater centralization of 
the Federal functions, and in addition urge the better co-ordination of 
the work of the Federal, state and local health agencies. 

Child Labor 

The Republican Party stands for a Federal child labor law and for its 
rigid enforcement. If the present law be found unconstitutional or in- 
effective, we shall seek other means to enable Congress to prevent the 
evils of child labor. 

Women in Industry 

Women have special problems of employment w^hich make necessary 
special study. We commend Congress for the permanent establishment 
of the Women's Bureau in the United States Department of Labor to 
serve as a source of information to the states and to Congress. 

The principle of equal pay for equal service should be applied through- 
out all branches of the Federal government in which women are employed. 

Federal aid for vocational training should take into consideration the 
special aptitudes and needs of women workers. 

We demand Federal legislation to limit the hours of employment of 
women engaged in intensive industry, the product of which enters into 
interstate commerce. 

15 



Housing 

The housing shortage has not only compelled careful study of ways 
of stimulating building, but it has brought into relief the unsatisfactory 
character of the housing accommodations of large numbers of the inhab- 
itants of our cities. A nation of home owners is the best guaranty of the 
maintenance of those principles of liberty, law and order upon which our 
government is founded. Both national and state governments should 
encourage in all proper ways the acquiring of homes by our citizens. The 
United States Government should make available the valuable informa- 
tion on housing and town planning collected during the war. This in- 
formation should be kept up to date and made currently available. 

Hawaii 

For Hawaii we recommend Federal assistance in Americanizing and 
educating their greatly disproportionate foreign population ; home rule ; 
and the rehabilitation of the Hawaiian race. 



Pointing to its history and relying on its fundamental principles, we 
declare that the Republican Party has the genius, courage and construc- 
tive ability to end executive usurpation and restore constitutional gov- 
ernment; to fulfill our world obligations without sacrificing our national 
independence; to raise the national standards of education, health and 
general welfare; to re-establish a peace-time administration and to sub- 
stitute economy and efficiency for extravagance and chaos ; to restore and 
maintain the national credit; to reform unequal and burdensome taxes; 
to free business from arbitrary and unnecessary official control; to sup- 
press disloyalty without the denial of justice; to repel the arrogant chal- 
lenge of any class and to maintain a government of all the people as con- 
trasted with government for some of the people, and finally, to allay un- 
rest, suspicion and strife, and to secure the co-operation and unity of all 
citizens in the solution of the complex problems of the day; to the end 
that our country, happy and prosperous, proud of its past, sure of itself 
and of its institutions, may look forward with confidence to the future. 



16 



THE METAL OF REAL FRIENDSHIP 

A SPEECH BY SENATOR WARREN G. HARDING, DELIV- 
ERED IN MARION, OHIO, AT THE WELCOME-HOME 
CELEBRATION IN HIS HONOR AFTER HIS NOM- 
INATION TO THE PRESIDENCY, JULY 5, 1920 

Dear Friends and Neighbors — There is a conflict of emotions in re- 
sponding to your cordial welcome home. It is always good to come here, 
no matter whither one has gone or what the revolving fates have wrought 
during one's absence. 

It is a little difficult to make a choice among thoughts impelling. 
For thirty-eight years we have been friends and neighbors here in Ma- 
rion, and only a few miles away are the treasured scenes of birth and 
boyhood. Some of them have been recalled and recorded, very re- 
cently, with touches of imagination I fear, because the real story is a 
very ordinary one, which might be related concerning any of us, but 
that doesn't in any way mar the understanding among home folks. 

There can be no mistaken appraisal of our relationship. It is too 
extended, too intimate, too thoroughly stamped by community interest. 
You and I, all of us Marionites, have been boosting this Marion of 
ours together for considerably more than thirty years, and have shared 
in varying degrees the achievements attending its development. The 
thought of development and progress, a desire to find our place on the 
map of Ohio, inspired us, and there was common interest in spite of the 
seeming selfishness attending rewards. We were all boosters together, 
because it is an engaging pursuit. 

Play the Game Together 

Any distinction which came to me in that connection was due to 
the accident of my occupation as a publisher, rather than any spirit 
peculiarly my own. We all played the game together, because it was 
our game, and we boosted because the upbuilding, uplifting, commend- 
ing pursuits in life are the only ones worthy of any one's committal, 
f If it is becoming to assent to the praise you bestoMs let it be understood 
that any preference ever shown me is wholly and invariably due to that 
consideration which I have willingly shown to others and to an inherited 
conviction that it is a waste of God's rich endowments to assail 
and destroy when all the flowers of life bloom best in the soil of 
sympathy and encouragement. 

Marion has been unfailingly generous toward me. Many of you 
have stood before this home before and voiced your greeting and en- 
couragement. There are running through my mind recollections of 

17 



seventeen years ago, when you first wished me well as a State candidate. 
Seven years later you came again, though the enterprise later ended in 
failure. Four years later on you came once more, and we did succeed, 
and I was honored with a commission to the Federal Senate, where any 
man might well prefer to perform his part in public service. It is im- 
possible to convey my reluctance to leave the Senate, and just now I 
have come to realize that I am leaving no matter how the election decides. 

The Metal of Real Friendship 

But the thought I want to emphasize, with every stamp of gratitude, 
is that you have come with your greetings again and again, and yet 
again, and you come this afternoon with a manifestation of friendship 
and confidence which must fill any human heart to overflowing. I am 
so truly grateful, I feel it all so deeply, that words fail to convey all the 
appreciation which is in my heart. 

But I must tell you the thing old Marion County did which is the 
supreme compensation to me. It isn't so expressive to applaud a 
victorious candidate, but you test the metal of real friendship when one 
is initiating a candidacy. Last April, when the primary was invoked 
to bespeak Ohio's preference, this old County gave to me that neighborly 
and friendly support which is the nearest approach to one hundred per 
cent loyalty I have ever seen accorded to any one. That was the su- 
preme expression. If I could have but one — If I had to choose between 
that tribute of the home county and the final vote in the national con- 
vention — I would choose the home county expression of confidence, be- 
cause your knowing me made it the finest tribute to which one may 
aspire. 

Frankly, I like your rejoicing over a more than usual tribute to a 
fellow townsman. I like it because it is in consonance with our Marion 
policy. Perhaps it is in the minds of some of you to wonder that we 
succeeded, and the thought is not exclusively yours, even if I have 
guessed correctly. 

Reverence for Government 

You view the great institution of Federal Government from afar, 
in that reverence which is the chief security of the Republic. God 
help us to rivet that reverence more firmly! It will not destroy it, 
it will only clarify that reverence and add to your confidence, if I tell 
you, after close range observation, that government is not of sup- 
ermen, but of normal men, very much like you and me, except 
that those in authority are, or ought to be, broadened and 
strengthened in measuring up to great responsibility. 

Let me say it to you, friends and neighbors — aye, let me say it to 
any who may be noting our exchange of greetings today: If I believed in 

18 



one-man government, if I believed the super-man were necessary 
to appeal to the sober sense of the Republic and ask our people to 
plant their feet in secure and forward paths once more, I would 
not be here in the capacity which has inspired your greetings. 
Normal men and back to normalcy will steady a civilization 
which has been fevered by the supreme upheaval of all the world. 
Government is a very natural thing and in most instances ought 
to be a very normal and deliberate proceeding. Not always, of course, 
because great emergencies and crises mark all the vicissitudes of life. 
Normal men rise to meet them, else they never would be met. 

Team Work Accomplished It 

Perhaps I best can convey my thought by reverting to the commun- 
ity of endeavor which made the city we rejoice to boost. No super- 
man did it, no one man did it. We worked together, we counselled one 
another, we consulted men stamped with leadership, and in these proc- 
esses we have achieved, and rejoiced thereat. Now make the appli- 
cation. This wonderful land of ours is but the aggregate of com- 
munities, the sum total of cities, villages and farms, and the 
mutuality of interest and the necessary harmony of purpose, if 
we are to go on, must lie in conference, in council, in the con- 
cord of many minds, in the vision of plural leadership, in the 
never-failing righteousness of intelligent public opinion, not in 
the glory of the super-man. 

To Keep Our Heritage 

But I did not mean to drift to things which have the savor of 
politics or the seriousness of governmental problems. Let us forget 
candidacies and political problems, and drink only of the grateful 
waters of home-fellowship, and renew the intimacy of acquaintances 
which five years of practically continuous public service have very much 
impaired. We are to be neighbors in fact, once more, not with all the 
old-time freedom, alas! — but let us cling to the naturalness which be- 
speaks reality. 

The day, the occasion, the presence of the Republic's defenders in 
the world war — aye, and of veterans of the Spanish-American War and 
the War for Union and Nationality — all combine to remind me you 
have been observing the anniversary of the Republic's Independence. 
Let us pledge ourselves anew, one and all, that this heritage handed to 
us through the heroism and sacrifices of the founding fathers shall be 
held sacred, unabridged and undimmed, and that American nationality 
shall be the inspiration of the myriads of Americans of the future, 
even as it stirs our hearts today. 



19 



SPEECH OF ACCEPTANCE OF THE REPUBLI- 
CAN PARTY'S NOMINATION TO THE PRES- 
IDENCY DELIVERED AT MARION, OHIO, 
JULY 22, 1920, BY SENATOR 
WARREN G. HARDING 

Chairman Lodge, Members of the Notification Committee, Members 
of the National Committee, Ladies and Gentlemen: 

The message which you have formally conveyed brings to me a real- 
ization of responsibility which is not underestimated. It is a supreme task 
to interpret the covenant of a great political party, the activities of which 
are so woven into the history of this Republic, and a very sacred and 
solemn undertaking to utter the faith and aspirations of the many mil- 
lions who adhere to that party. The party platform has charted the 
way, yet, somehow, we have come to expect that interpretation which 
voices the faith of nominees who must assume specific tasks. 

Let me be understood clearly from the very beginning: I believe in 
party sponsorship in government. I believe in party government as 
distinguished from personal government, individual, dictatorial, 
autocratic or what not. In a citizenship of more than a hundred mil- 
lions it is impossible to reach agreement upon all questions. Parties 
are formed by those who reach a consensus of opinion. It was the intent 
of the founding fathers to give to this Republic a dependable and en- 
during popular government, representative in form, and it was designed 
to make political parties not only the preserving sponsors, but the 
effective agencies through which hopes and aspirations and convictions 
and conscience may be translated into public performance. 

Popular government has been an inspiration of liberty since the 
dawn of civilizations. Republics have risen and fallen, and a transition 
from party to personal government has preceded every failure since the 
world began. Under the Constitution we have the charted way 
to security and perpetuity. We know it gave to us the safe path to a 
developing eminence which no people in the world ever rivalled. It has 
guaranteed the rule of intelligent, deliberate public opinion expressed 
through parties. Under this plan, a masterful leadership becomingly 
may manifest its influence, but a people's will still remains the supreme 
authority. 

No One-Man Government 

The American achievement under the plan of the fathers is nowhere 
disputed. On the contrary, the American example has been the model 
of every republic which glorifies the progress of liberty, and is every- 

20 



where the leaven of representative democracy which has expanded 
human freedom. It has been wrought through party government. 

No man is big enough to run this great Republic. There never has 
been one. Such domination was never intended. Tranquility, stabil- 
ity, dependability — all are assured in party sponsorship, and we mean to 
renew the assurances which were rended in the cataclysmal war. 

The Surrender of Congress 

It was not surprising that we went far afield from safe and prescribed 
paths amid the war anxieties. There was the unfortunate tendency 
before ; there was the surrender of Congress to the growing assump- 
tion of the executive before the world-war imperilled all the practices 
we had learned to believe in ; and in the war emergency every safeguard 
was swept away. In the name of democracy we established autocracy. 
We are not complaining at this extraordinary bestowal or assumption in 
war, it seemed temporarily necessary ; our alarm is over the failure to 
restore the constitutional methods when the war emergency 
ended. 

A Restored Popular Rule 

Our first committal is the restoration of representative popular gov- 
ernment, under the Constitution, through the agency of the Republican 
Party. Our vision includes more than a Chief Executive; we be- 
lieve in a Cabinet of highest capacity, equal to the responsibilities 
which our system contemplates, in whose councils the Vice- 
President, second official of the Republic, shall be asked to par- 
ticipate. The same vision includes a cordial understanding 
and co-ordinated activities with a House of Congress, fresh from 
the people, voicing the convictions which members bring from direct 
contact with the electorate, and cordial co-operation along with the re- 
stored functions of the Senate, fit to be the greatest deliberative body 
of the world. Its members are the designated sentinels on the towers 
of constitutional Government. The resumption of the Senate's author- 
ity saved to this Republic its independent nationality, when autocracy 
misinterpreted the dream of a world experiment to be the vision of a 
world ideal. 

International Relations 

It is not difficult, Chairman Lodge, to make ourselves clear on the 
question of international relationship. We Republicans of the Senate, 
conscious of our solemn oaths and mindful of our constitutional obliga- 
tions, when we saw the structure of a world super-government taking 
visionary form, joined in a becoming warning of our devotion to this 
Republic. If the torch of constitutionalism had not been dimmed 
the delayed peace of the world and the tragedy of disappoint- 

21 



ment and Europe's misunderstanding of America easily might 
have been avoided. The Republicans of the Senate halted the 
barter of independent American eminence and influence which 
it was proposed to exchange for an obscure and unequal place in 
the merged government of the world. Our Party means to hold 
the heritage of American nationality unimpaired and unsur- 
rendered. 

We Will Not Hold Aloof 

The world will not misconstrue. We do not mean to hold aloof. We 
do not mean to shun a single responsibility of this Republic to world 
civilization. There is no hate in the American heart. We have no envy, 
no suspicion, no aversion for any people in the world. We hold to our 
rights, and mean to defend, aye, we mean to sustain the rights of this 
nation and our citizens alike, everywhere under the shining sun. Yet 
there is concord of amity and sympathy and fraternity in every resolu- 
tion. There is a genuine aspiration in every American breast for a 
tranquil friendship with all the world. 

A World Made Secure 

More, we believe the unspeakable sorrows, the immeasurable sacri- 
fices, the awakened convictions and the aspiring conscience of human 
kind must commit the nations of the earth to a new and better 
relationship. It need not be discussed now what motives plunged the 
world into war, it need not be inquired whether we asked the sons of this 
Republic to defend our national rights, as I believe we did, or to purge 
the old world of the accumulated ills of rivalry and greed, the sacrifices 
will be in vain if we can not acclaim a new order, with added security 
to civilization and peace maintained. 

To Preserve Our Independence 

One may readily sense the conscience of our America. I am sure I 
understand the purpose of the dominant group of the Senate. We were 
not seeking to defeat a world aspiration, we were resolved to safeguard 
America. We were resolved then, even as we are today, and will be 
tomorrow, to preserve this free and independent Republic. Let those 
now responsible, or seeking responsibility, propose the surrender, 
whether with interpretations, apologies orreluctant reservations— 
from which our rights are to be omitted — we welcome the refer- 
endum to the American people on the preservation of Amer- 
ica, and the Republican Party pledges its defense of the preserved 
inheritance of national freedom. 

Immediate Peace 

In the call of the conscience of America is peace, peace that closes 
the gaping wound of the world war, and silences the impassioned voices 

22 



of international envy and distrust. Heeding this call and knowing as I 
do the disposition of Congress, I promise you formal and effective 
peace so quickly as a Republican Congress can pass its declara- 
tion for a Republican executive to sign. Then we may turn to our re- 
adjustment at home and proceed deliberately and reflectively to that 
hoped-for world relationship which shall satisfy both conscience and 
aspirations and still hold us free from menacing involvement. 
An Association of Nations 

I can hear in the call of conscience an insistent voice for the largely 
reduced armaments throughout the world, with attending reduction 
of burdens upon peace-loving humanity. We wish to give of American 
influence and example; we must give of American leadership to that 
invaluable accomplishment. 

I can speak unreservedly of the American aspirations and the Repub- 
lican committal for an association of nations, co-operating in sublime 
accord, to attain and preserve peace through justice rather than force, 
determined to add to security through international law, so clarified 
that no misconstruction can be possible without aff^ronting world honor. 

No Super-Government 

This Republic can never be unmindful of its power, and must never 
forget the force of its example. Possessor of might that admits no 
fear, America must stand foremost for the right. If the mistaken voice 
of America, spoken in unheeding haste, led Europe, in the hour of deepest 
anxiety, into a military alliance which menaces peace and threatens all 
freedom, instead of adding to their security, then we must speak the 
truth for America and express our hope for the fraternized conscience of 
nations. 

It will avail nothing to discuss in detail the League Covenant, \/ 
which was conceived for world super-government, negotiated in 
misunderstanding, and intolerantly urged and demanded by its 
administration sponsors, who resisted every effort to safeguard 
America, and who finally rejected it when such safeguards were 
inserted. If the supreme blunder has left European relationships 
inextricably interw^oven in the League compact, our sympathy for 
Europe only magnifies our own good fortune in resisting involvement. 
^It is better to be the free and disinterested agentof international justice 
and advancing civilization, with the covenant of conscience, than be 
shackled by a written compact which surrenders our freedom of action 
and gives a military alliance the right to proclaim America's duty to' 
the world. 

No Mandate Wars for Our Sons 

No surrender of rights to a world council or its military alliance, 

23 



no assumed mandatory, however appealing, ever shall summon 
the sons of this Republic to war. Their supreme sacrifice shall only 
be asked for America and its call of honor. There is a sanctity in that 
right we will not delegate. 

Free Help is the Best Help 

When the compact was being written, I do not know whether Europe 
asked or ambition insistently bestowed. It was so good to rejoice in the 
world's confidence in our unselfishness that 1 can believe our evident dis- 
interestedness inspired Europe's wish for our association quite as much 
as the selfish thought of enlisting American power and resources. Ours 
is an outstanding, influential example to the world, whether we cloak it 
in spoken modesty or magnify it in exaltation. We want to help; we 
mean to help; but we hold to our own interpretation of the American 
conscience as the very soul of our nationality. 

The Consecration of Nations 

Disposed as we are the way is very simple. Let the failure attending 
assumption, obstinacy, impracticability and delay be recognized, and 
let us find the big, practical, unselfish way to do our part, neither 
covetous because of ambition, nor hesitant through fear, but 
ready to serve ourselves, humanity and God. With a Senate 
advising as the Constitution contemplates, I would hopefully approach 
the nations of Europe and of the earth, proposing that understanding 
which makes us a willing participant in the consecration of nations to a 
new relationship, to commit the moral forces of the world, America 
included, to peace and international justice, still leaving America free, 
independent and self-reliant, but offering friendship to all the world. 

Be Americans First 

If men call for more specific details, I remind them that moral com- 
mittals are broad and all-inclusive, and we are contemplating peoples in 
the concord of humanity's advancement. From our own viewpoint the 
program is specifically American, and we mean to be American first, to 
all the world. 

Appraising preserved nationality as the first essential to the con- 
tinued progress of the Republic there is linked with it the supreme 
necessity of the restoration — let us say the revealment — of the Consti- 
tution, and our reconstruction as an industrial nation. Here is the 
transcending task. It concerns our common weal at home and will de- 
cide our future eminence in the world. More than these, this Re- 
public, under constitutional liberties, has given to mankind the most 
fortunate conditions for human activity and attainment the world has 
ever noted, and we are today the world's reserve force in the great con- 

24 



test for liberty through security, and maintained equality of opportunity 
and its righteous rewards. 

The "Red" Conflagration 

It is folly to close our eyes to outstanding facts. Humanity is 
restive, much of the world is in revolution, the agents of discord and de- 
struction have wrought their tragedy in pathetic Russia, have lighted 
their torches among other peoples, and hope to see America as a part of 
the great Red conflagration. Ours is the temple of liberty under the law, 
and it is ours to call the Sons of Opportunity to its defense. America 
must not only save herself, but ours must be the appealing voice to sober 
the world. 

The Weal of the Many 

More than all else the present-day world needs understanding. There 
can be no peace save through composed differences, and the submis- 
sion of the individual to the will and weal of the many. Any other plan 
means anarchy and its rule of force. 

It must be understood that toil alone makes for accomplishment 
and advancement, and righteous possession is the reward of toil, and 
its incentive. There is no progress except in the stimulus of com- 
petition. 

For Restored Competition 

When competition — natural, fair, impelling competition — is sup- 
pressed, whether by law, compact or conspiracy, we halt the march of 
progress, silence the voice of inspiration, and paralyze the will for 
achievement. These are but common sense truths of human develop- 
ment. 

High Wages for High Production 

The chief trouble today is that the world war wrought the destruc- 
tion of healthful competition, left our storehouses empty, and there is a 
minimum production when our need is maximum. Maximums, not 
minimums, is the call of America. It isn't a new story, because war 
never fails to leave depleted storehouses and always impairs the effi- 
ciency of production. War also establishes its higher standards for wages, 
and they abide. I wish the higher wage to abide, on one explicit 
condition — that the wage-earner will give full return for the 
wage received. It is the best assurance we can have for a reduced 
cost of living. Mark you, I am ready to acclaim the highest standard of 
pay, but I would be blind to the responsibility that marks this fateful 
hour if I did not caution the wage-earners of America that mounting 
wages and decreased production can lead only to industrial and eco- 
nomic ruin. 

25 



I want, somehow, to appeal to the sons and daughters of the Repub- 
lic, to every producer, to join hand and brain in production, more 
production, honest production, patriotic production, because 
patriotic production is no less a defense of our best civilization 
than that of armed force. Profiteering is a crime of commis- 
sion, under-production is a crime of omission. We must work 
our most and best, else the destructive reaction will come. We 
must stabilize and strive for normalcy, else the inevitable reaction will 
bring its train of sufferings, disappointments and reversals. We want 
to forestall such reaction, we want to hold all advanced ground, and 
fortify it with general good-fortune. 

Capital and Labor Interdependent 

Let us return for a moment to the necessity for understanding, par- 
ticularly that understanding which concerns ourselves at home. I de- 
cline to recognize any conflict of interest among the participants in in- 
dustry. The destruction of one is the ruin of the other, the suspicion or 
rebellion of one unavoidably involves the other. In conflict is disaster, 
in understanding there is triumph. There is no issue relating to the 
foundation on which industry is builded, because industry is bigger than 
any element in its modern making. But the insistent call is for labor, 
management and capital to reach understanding. 

The Hopes of the Wage-Earner 

The human element comes first, and I want the employers in in- 
dustry to understand the aspirations, the convictions, the 
yearnings of the millions of American wage-earners, and I want 
the wage-earners to understand the problems, the anxieties, the 
obligations of management and capital, and all of them must 
understand their relationship to the people and their obligation 
to the Republic. Out of this understanding will come the unanimous 
committal to economic justice, and in economic justice lies that social 
justice which is the highest essential to human happiness. 

I am speaking as one who has counted the contents of the pay en- 
velope from the viewpoint of the earner as well as the employer. No one 
pretends to deny the inequalities which are manifest in modern indus- 
trial life. They are less, in fact, than they were before organization and 
grouping on either side revealed the inequalities, and conscience has 
wrought more justice than statutes have compelled, but the ferment of 
the world rivets our thoughts on the necessity of progressive solution, 
else our generation will suffer the experiment which means chaos for our 
day to re-establish God's plan for the great tomorrow. 
Liberty Under the Law 

Speaking our sympathies, uttering the conscience of all the people, 

26 



mindful of our right to dwell amid the good fortunes of rational, con- 
science-impelled advancement, we hold the majesty of righteous govern- 
ment, with liberty under the law, to be our avoidance of chaos, and we 
call upon every citizen of the Republic to hold fast to that which made 
us what we are, and we will have orderly government safeguard the on- 
ward march to all we ought to be. 

The menacing tendency of the present day is not chargeable wholly to 
the unsettled and fevered conditions caused by the war. The mani- 
fest weakness in popular government lies in the temptation to appeal to 
grouped citizenship for political advantage. There is no greater peril. 
The Constitution contemplates no class and recognizes no group. 
It broadly includes all the people, with specific recognition for none, and 
the highest consecration we can make today is a committal of the Repub- 
lican Party to that saving constitutionalism which contemplates all 
America as one people, and holds just government free from influence on 
the one hand and unmoved by intimidation on the other. 

Free Speech, Press and Assembly 

It would be the blindness of folly to ignore the activities in our own 
country which are aimed to destroy our economic system, and to com- 
mit us to the colossal tragedy which has both destroyed all freedom and 
made Russia impotent. This movement is not to be halted in throttled 
liberties. We must not abridge the freedom of speech, the freedom 
of press, or the freedom of assembly, because there is no promise 
in repression. These liberties are as sacred as the freedom of religious 
belief, as inviolable as the rights of life and the pursuit of happiness. 
We do hold to the right to crush sedition, to stifle a menacing contempt 
for law, to stamp out a peril to the safety of the Republic or its people, 
when emergency calls, because security and the majesty of the law are 
the first essentials of liberty. He who threatens the destruction of the 
Government by force or flaunts his contempt for lawful authority, 
ceases to be a loyal citizen and forfeits his rights to the freedom of the 
Republic. 

The Minorities' Privileges 

Let it be said to all of America that our plan of popular government 
contemplates such orderly changes as the crystallized intelligence of 
the majority of our people think best. There can be no modification of 
this underlying rule, but no majority shall abridge the rights of a minor- 
ity. Men have a right to question our system in fullest freedom, but 
they must always remember that the rights of freedom impose the 
obligations which maintain it. Our policy is not of repression, but we 
make appeal today to American intelligence and patriotism, when the 

27 



Republic is menaced from within, just as we trusted American patriot- 
ism when our rights were threatened from without. 

Collective Bargaining and Personal Rights 
We call on all America for steadiness, so that we may proceed delib- 
erately to the readjustment which concerns all the people. Our Party 
platform fairly expresses the conscience of Republicans on industrial 
relations. No party is indifferent to the welfare of the wage-earner. 
To us his good fortune is of deepest concern, and we seek to make that 
good fortune permanent. We do not oppose but approve collective 
bargaining, because that is an outstanding right, but we are un- 
alterably insistent that its exercise must not destroy the equally 
sacred right of the individual, in his necessary pursuit of liveli- 
hood. Any American has the right to quit his employment, so 
has every American the right to seek employment. The group 
must not endanger the individual, and we must discourage 
groups preying upon one another, and none shall be allowed to 
forget that government's obligations are alike to all the people. 

Strikes and the People 

I hope we may do more than merely discourage the losses and suffer- 
ings attending industrial conflict. The strike against the Govern- 
ment is properly denied, for Government service involves none of the 
elements of profit which relate to competitive enterprise. There is prog- 
ress in the establishment of official revealment of issues and conditions 
which lead to conflict, so that unerring public sentiment may speed the 
adjustment, but I hope for that concord of purpose, not forced but in- 
spired by the common weal, which will give a regulated public service 
the fullest guaranty of continuity. 

Justice to Railroads and Workers 

I am thinking of the railroads. In modern life they are the very base 
of all our activities and interchanges. For public protection we have 
enacted laws providing for a regulation of the charge for service, a limi- 
tation on the capital invested and a limitation on capital's earnings. 
There remains only competition of service, on which to base our hopes 
for an efficiency and expansion which meet our modern requirements. 
The railway workmen ought to be the best paid and know the best work- 
ing conditions in the world. Theirs is an exceptional responsibility. 
They are not only essential to the life and health and all productive acti- 
vities of the people, but they are directly responsible for the safety of 
traveling millions. The government which has assumed so much 
authority for the public good might well stamp railway employ- 
ment with the sanctity of public service and guarantee to the 
railway employes that justice which voices the American concep- 

28 



tion of righteousness on the one hand, and assures continu- 
ity of service on the other. 

No Government Ownership 

The importance of the railway rehabilitation is so obvious that refer- 
ence seems uncalled for. We are so confident that much of the present- 
day insufficiency and inefficiency of transportation are due to the wither- 
ing hand of government operation that we emphasize anew our oppo- 
sition to government ownership; we want to expedite the repara- 
tion, and make sure the mistake is not repeated. 

To Encourage Rehabilitation 

It is little use to recite the story of development, exploitation, gov- 
ernment experiment and its neglect, government operation and its fail- 
ures. The inadequacy of trackage and terminal facilities, the insuffi- 
ciency of equipment and the inefficiency of operation — all bear the blight- 
ing stamp of governmental incapacity during Federal operation. The 
work of rehabilitation under the restoration of private ownership deserves 
our best encouragement. Billions are needed in new equipment, not 
alone to meet the growing demand for service, but to restore the extra- 
ordinary depreciation due to the strained service of war. With restricted 
earnings, and with speculative profits removed, railway activities have 
come to the realm of conservative and constructive service, and the gov- 
ernment which impaired must play its part in restoration. Manifestly 
the returns must be so gauged that necessary capital may be enlisted, 
and we must foster as well as restrain. 

A Spirit of Assistance 

We have no more pressing problem. A state of inadequate transpor- 
tation facilities, mainly chargeable to the failure of governmental experi- 
ment, is losing millions to agriculture, it is hindering industry, it is men- 
acing the American people with a fuel shortage little less than a peril. 
It emphasizes the present-day problem, and suggests that spirit of en- 
couragement and assistance which commits all America to relieve such an 
emergency. 

Helping Highway Construction 

The one compensation amid attending anxieties is our new and needed 
realization of the vital part transportation plays in the complexities of 
modern life. We are not to think of rails alone, but highways from farm 
to market, from railway to farm, arteries of life-blood to present-day life, 
the quickened ways to communication and exchange, the answer of our 
people to the motor age. We believe in generous federal co-operation 
in construction, linked with assurances of maintenance that will 
put an end to criminal waste of public funds on the one hand and 
give a guaranty of upkept highways on the other. 

29 



Water transportation is inseparably linked with adequacy of 
facilities, and we favor American eminence on the seas, the 
practical development of inland waterways, the upbuilding and 
co-ordination of all to make them equal to and ready for every 
call of developing and widening American commerce. I like that 
recommittal to thoughts of America first which pledges the Panama 
Canal, an American creation, to the free use of American shipping. It 
will add to the American reawakening. 

The High Cost of Living 

One cannot speak of industry and commerce, and the transportation 
on which they are dependent, without an earnest thought of the ab- 
normal cost of living and the problems in its wake. It is easy to inveigh, 
but that avails nothing. And it is far too serious to dismiss with flaming 
but futile promises. 

Eight years ago, in times of peace, the Democratic Party made it an 
issue, and when clothed with power that party came near to its accomp- 
lishment by destroying the people's capacity to buy. But there was a 
cure worse than the ailment. It is easy to understand the real causes, 
after which the patient must help to effect his own cure. 

Inflated Dollars 

Gross expansion of currency and credit have depreciated the dollar 
just as expansion and inflation have discredited the coins of the world. We 
inflated in haste, we must deflate in deliberation. We debased the dollar 
in reckless finance, we must restore in honesty. Deflation on the one 
hand and restoration of the 100-cent dollar on the other ought to 
have begun on the day after the armistice, but plans were lacking 
or courage failed. The unpreparedness for peace was little less 
costly than unpreparedness for war. 

The End of Extravagance 

We can promise no one remedy which will cure an ill of such wide 
proportions, but we do pledge that earnest and consistent attack 
which the party platform covenants. We will attempt intelli- 
gent and courageous deflation, and strike at government bor- 
rowing which enlarges the evil, and we will attack high cost of 
government with every energy and facility which attend Republi- 
can capacity. We promise that relief which will attend the halt- 
ing of waste and extravagance, and the renewal of the practice of 
public economy, not alone because it will relieve tax burdens, but 
because it will be an example to stimulate thrift and economy in 
private life. 

I have already alluded to the necessity for the fullness of production, 
and we need the fullness of service which attends the exchange of prod- 

30 



ucts. Let us speak the irrefutable truth — high wages and reduced cost 
of living are in utter contradiction unless we have the height of efficiency 

for wages received. 

A Challenge to Profiteering 

In all sincerity we promise the prevention of unreasonable profits, we 
challenge profiteering with all the moral force and the legal powers of 
government and people, but it is fair, aye, it is timely, to give reminder 
that law is not the sole corrective of our economic ills. 

Let us call to all the people for thrift and economy, for denial and 
sacrifice, if need be, for a nation-wide drive against extravagance and lux- 
ury, to a recommittal to simplicity of living, to that prudent and normal 
plan of life which is the health of the Republic. There hasn't been 
a recover>^ from the waste and abnormalities of war since the story of 
mankind was first written, except through work and saving, through in- 
dustry and denial, while needless spending and heedless extravagance 
have marked every decay in the history of nations. Give the assurance 
of that rugged simplicity of American life which marked the first century 
of amazing development, and this generation may underwrite a second 
century of surpassing accomplishment. 

A New Agricultural Program 

The Republican Party was founded by farmers, with the sensitive 
conscience born of their freedom and their simple lives. These founders 
sprang from the farms of the then Middle West. Our party has never 
failed in its realization that agriculture is essentially the foundation of our 
very existence, and it has ever been our policy, purpose and performance, 
to protect and promote that essential industry. 

New conditions, which attend amazing growth and extraordinary in- 
dustrial development, call for a new and forward-looking program. 
The American farmer had a hundred and twenty millions to feed in the 
home market, and heard the cry of the world for food and answered it, 
though he faced an appalling task, amid handicaps never encountered 
before. 

The Farmers' Difl&culties 

In the rise of price levels there have come increased appraisals to his 
acres without adding to their value in fact, but which do add to his taxes 
and expenses without enhancing his returns. His helpers have yielded 
to the lure of shop and city, until, almost alone, he has met and borne the 
burden of the only insistent attempts to force down prices. It challenges 
both the wisdom and the justice of artificial drives on prices to recall 
that they were effective almost solely against his products in the hands of 
the producer, and never eflfective against the same products in passing 
to the consumer. Contemplating the defenseless-ness of the individual 

31 



farmer to meet the organized buyers of his products, and the distributors 
of the things the farmer buys I hold that farmers should not only be 
permitted but encouraged to join in co-operative association to 
reap the just measure of reward merited by their arduous toil. 

Let us facilitate co-operation to insure against the risks attending 
agriculture, which the urban world so little understands, and a like co- 
operation to market their products as directly as possible with the con- 
sumer, in the interests of all. Upon such association and co-operation 
should be laid only such restrictions as will prevent arbitrary control of 
our food suppl}^ and the fixing of extortionate price upon it. 

Intensive Cultivation 

Our platform is an earnest pledge of renewed concern for this most es- 
sential and elemental industry, and in both appreciation and interest we 
pledge effective expression in law and practice. We will hail that co- 
operation which again will make profitable and desirable the 
ownership and operation of comparatively small farms inten- 
sively cultivated, and which will facilitate the caring for the 
products of farm and orchard without the lamentable waste 
under present conditions. 

Putting the Farmer on the Map 

America would look with anxiety on the discouragement of farming 
activity, either through the Government's neglect or its paralysis by so- 
cialistic practices. A Republican administration will be committed 
to renewed regard for agriculture, and seek the participation of 
farmers in curing the ills justly complained of, and aim to place 
the American farm where it ought to be— highly ranked in Ameri- 
can activities and fully sharing the highest good fortunes of Amer- 
ican life. 

Becomingly associated with this subject are the policies of irrigation 
and reclamation, so essential to agricultural expansion, and the con- 
tinued development of the great and wonderful West. It is our purpose 
to continue and enlarge Federal aid, not in sectional partiality, but for 
the good of all America. We hold to that harmony of relationship be- 
tween conservation and development which fittingly appraises our natural 
resources and makes them available to developing America of today, and 
still holds to the conservation thought for the America of tomorrow. 
Reclamation and Development 

The Federal Government's relation to reclamation and development 
is too important to admit of ample discussion today. Alaska, alone, is 
rich in resources beyond all imagination, and needs only closer linking, 
through lines of transportation, and a government policy that both 
safeguards and encourages development, to speed it to a foremost posi- 

32 



tion as a commonwealth, rugged in citizenship and rich in materialized 
resources. 

These things I can only mention. Within becoming limits one can- 
not say more. Indeed, for the present, many questions of vast importance 
must be hastily passed, reserving a fuller discussion to suitable occasion 
as the campaign advances. 

A Business-Like Administration 

I believe the budget system will effect a necessary helpful 
reformation, and reveal business methods to government business. 

I believe Federal departments should be made more business- 
like and send back to productive effort thousands of Federal employees, 
who are either duplicating work or not essentail at all. 

I believe in the protective tariff policy and know we will be calling 
for its saving Americanism again. 

I believe in a great merchant marine — I would have this Repub- 
lic the leading maritime nation of the world. 

I believe in a navy ample to protect it, and able to assure us 
dependable defense. 

A Small Army, But the Best 

I believe in a small army, but the best in the world, with a mind- 
fulness for preparedness which will avoid the unutterable cost of our 
previous neglect. 

I believe in our eminence in trade abroad, which the Govern- 
ment should aid in expanding, both in revealing markets and speeding 
cargoes. 

I believe in established standards for immigration, which are 
concerned with the future citizenship of the republic, not with mere man- 
power in industry. 

I believe that every man who dons the garb of American citi- 
zenship and walks in the light of American opportunity, must become 
American in heart and soul. 

I believe in holding fast to every forward step in unshackling 
child-labor and elevating conditions of woman's employment. 

I believe the Federal Government should stamp out lynching and 
remove that stain from the fair name of America. 

I believe the Federal Government should give its effective aid in 
solving the problem of ample and becoming housing of its citizen- 
ship. 

I believe this Government should make its Liberty and Victory 
bonds worth all that its patriotic citizens paid in purchasing 
them. 

33 



I believe the tax burdens imposed for the war emergency must 
be revised to the needs of peace, and in the interest of equity in distri- 
bution of the burden. 

I believe the Negro citizens of America should be guaranteed 
the enjoyment of all their rights, that they have earned the full 
measure of citizenship bestowed, that their sacrifices in blood on the 
battlefields of the Republic have entitled them to all of freedom and 
opportunity, all of sympathy and aid that the American spirit of fairness 
and justice demands. 

The Mexican Question 

I believe there is an easy and open path to righteous relation- 
ship with Mexico. It has seemed to me that our undeveloped, uncer- 
tain and infirm policy has made us a culpable party to the governmental 
misfortunes in that land. Our relations ought to be both friendly and 
sympathetic; we would like to acclaim a stable government there, and 
offer a neighborly hand in pointing the way to greater progress. It will 
be simple to have a plain and neighborly understanding, merely an un- 
derstanding about respecting our borders, about protecting the lives 
and possessions of American citizens lawfully within the Mexican 
dominions. There must be that understanding, else there can be no 
recognition, and then the understanding must be faithfully kept. 

Many of these declarations deserve a fuller expression, with some 
suggestions of plans to emphasize the faith. Such expression will follow 
in due time, I promise you. 

The Eighteenth Amendment 
I believe in law-enforcement. If elected I mean to be a con- 
stitutional president, and it is impossible to ignore the Consti- 
tution, unthinkable to evade a law, when our every committal 
is to orderly government. People ever will differ about the wis- 
dom of the enactment of a law — there is divided opinion respect- 
ing the Eighteenth Amendment and the laws enacted to make 
it operative — but there can be no difference of opinion about 
honest law-enforcement. 

Don't Cheat the People! 

Neither government nor party can afford to cheat the American 
people. The laws of Congress must harmonize with the Constitution, 
else they soon are adjudged to be void; Congress enacts the laws, and 
the executive branch of the Government is charged with enforcement. We 
cannot nullify because of divided opinion, we cannot jeopardize orderly 
government with contempt for law-enforcement. Modification or re- 
peal is the right of a free people whenever the deliberate and intelligent 

34 



public sentiment commands, but perversion and evasion mark the paths 
to the failure of government itself. 

Men and Women of the War 

Though not in any partisan sense, I must speak of the services of the 
men and women who rallied to the colors of the Republic in the World 
War. America realizes and appreciates the services rendered, the sacri- 
fices made and the sufferings endured. There shall be no distinction 
between those who knew the perils and glories of the battle-front 
or the dangers of the sea, and those who were compelled to serve 
behind the lines, or those who constituted the great reserve of a 
grand amy which awaited the call in camps at home. 

All were brave, all were sacrificing, all were sharers of those 
ideals which sent our boys thrice-armed to war. Worthy sons and 
daughters, these, fit successors to those who christened our banners in 
the immortal beginning, worthy sons of those who saved the Union and 
nationality when civil war wiped the ambiguity from the Constitution, 
ready sons of those who drew the sword for humanity's sake the first 
time in the world, in 1898. 

Requiting the Sacrifices 

The four million defenders on land and sea were worthy of the best 
traditions of a people never warlike in peace and never pacifist in war. 
They commanded our pride, they have our gratitude, which must have 
genuine expression. It is not only a duty, it is a privilege, to see that the 
sacrifices made shall be requited, and that those still suffering from casual- 
ties and disabilities shall be abundantly aided, and restored to the highest 
capabilities of citizenship and its enjoyment. 

Woman Suffrage 

The womanhood of America, always its glory, its inspiration, and the 
potent uplifting force in its social and spiritual development, is about 
to be enfranchised. Insofar as Congress can go, the fact is already ac- 
complished. By party edict, by my recorded vote, by personal con- 
viction, I am committed to this measure of justice. It is my 
earnest hope, my sincere desire that the one needed State vote 
be quickly recorded in the affirmation of the right of equal 
suffrage and that the vote of every citizen shall be cast and coun- 
ted in the approaching election. 

Alert Mind, Quickened Conscience 

Let us not share the apprehensions of many men and women as to the 
danger of this momentous extension of the franchise. Women have 
never been without influence in our political life. Enfranchisement will 
bring to the polls the votes of citizens who have been born upon our soil, 

35 



or who have sought in faith and assurance the freedom and opportunities 
of our land. It will bring the women educated in our schools, trained in 
our customs and habits of thought, and sharers of our problems. It will 
bring the alert mind, the awakened conscience, the sure intuition, the 
abhorrence of tyranny or oppression, the wide and tender sympathy that 
distinguish the women of America. Surely there can be no danger there. 

And to the great number of noble women who have opposed in con- 
viction this tremendous change in the ancient relation of the sexes as ap- 
plied to government, I venture to plead that they will accept the full 
responsibility of enlarged citizenship, and give to the best in the Republic 
their suffrage and support. 

Patriotism — And More 

Much has been said of late about world ideals, but I prefer to think 
of the ideal for America. I like to think there is something more than the 
patriotism and practical wisdom of the founding fathers. It is good to be- 
lieve that maybe destiny held this New World Republic to be the su- 
preme example of representative democracy and orderly liberty by which 
humanity is inspired to higher achievement. It is idle to think we have 
attained perfection, but there is the satisfying knowledge that we hold 
orderly processes for making our government reflect the heart and mind 
of the Republic. Ours is not only a fortunate people but a very common- 
sensical people, with vision high, but their feet on the earth, with belief in 
themselves and faith in God. Whether enemies threaten from with- 
out or menaces arise from within, there is some indefinable voice 
saying, "Have confidence in the Republic! America will go on!" 

A House Founded on a Rock 

Here is a temple of liberty no storms may shake, here are the altars of 
freedom no passions shall destroy. It was American in conception, 
American in its building, it shall be American in its fulfillment. Sectional 
once, we are all American now, and we mean to be all Americans to 
all the world. 

Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, my countrymen all: I 
would not be my natural self if I did not utter my consciousness of my 
limited ability to meet your full expectations, or to realize the aspirations 
within my own breast, but I will gladly give all that is in me, all of 
heart, soul and mind and abiding love of country, to service in 
our common cause. I can only pray to the Omnipotent God that 
I may be as worthy in service as I know myself to be faithful in 
thought and purpose. One can not give more. 

Mindful of the vast responsibilities, I must be frankly humble, but I 
have that confidence in the consideration and support of all true Ameri- 
cans which makes me wholly unafraid. With an unalterable faith and 

36 



in a hopeful spirit, with a hymn of service in my heart, I pledge 
fidelity to our country and to God, and accept the nomination 
of the Republican Party for the Presidency of the United States. 



A SPEECH BY SENATOR WARREN G. HARDING, 

TO RICHLAND COUNTY, OHIO, HARDING 

AND COOLIDGE CLUB, MARION, OHIO 

Mr. Cappeller, and Members of the Richland County Harding and 
Coolidge Club, Ladies and Gentlemen: 

It is with a keen sense of delight that I welcome your visit today. 
There is to me a special pleasure in your call. As your spokesman has 
said, our relations in the years gone by have been rather intimate, and I 
gladly recall the cordial friendship the people of Richland County have 
made manifest in the past. It gives me added pleasure, Mr. Cappeller, to 
recall the valued friendship of your lamented father. It was good to know 
him as a friend. 

I am pleased that you come not only as Republicans, but as neigh- 
bors and friends. We need to cultivate friendliness and neighborliness. 
I sometimes think in this busy, workaday world we are neglecting those 
little acts of neighborliness that make life sweet and worth while. It is 
well enough for one to strive to get ahead in a material sense for through 
that ambition human progress is wrought. To acquire and accumulate 
honestly is most laudable, but we should not forget that life's greatest 
joys lie in the social concourse of friends and neighbors. Out of such re- 
lations grow mutual respect, mutual sympathy and mutual interest, with- 
out which life holds little of real enjoyment. 

I feel myself almost a part of Richland County. Our people, early 
in the last century, settled in a section that was bounded by Richland 
and Crawford Counties, and my earliest recollections are of grists taken 
to Lexington for grinding. I recall distinctly the stories of my great- 
grandmother, who related to me how she had often gone with one bag of 
wheat on horseback, while the men were busy in the fields, and the cries 
of the wolves were a frequent accompaniment to the wearied homeward 
journey. That was in the days when heroes were without fame's acclaim, 
when a sturdy manhood and womanhood were battling with the wilder- 
ness to reveal Ohio to the star of empire, westward marching. Sometimes 
I am accused of living in the past, but, frankly, I find the story of their 
making Ohio very fascinating, and drink new inspiration in recalling the 
paths they trod and the works they wrought. The miracle in developing 

37 



America has its lessons, and emphasizes our resolution to hold fast to all 
the advancement they made, and go on securely toward all we hope to be. 

You have a population whose seed is of the sturdiest and best. 
Richland County was organized during the second war with Great Brit- 
ain in 1813, from settlers largely from Pennsylvania. The county takes 
its name from the soil — rich land — and the quality, quantity and variety 
of foodstuffs yearly produced justifies the choice of the name. Your 
farmers have long enjoyed a reputation for skill and success in the im- 
provement of farm stock breeds. You have likewise developed industri- 
ally, and your county, like ours, is an outstanding proof of that good for- 
tune which lies in factory and farm, moving in accord to make the ideal 
combination. Having prospered materially, your county has been like- 
wise fortunate in the quality of its people, from among whom have come 
many notable men to write their names upon the imperishable tablets of 
the nation's history. The Brinkerhofifs — Roeliff and Jacob — the first a 
soldier and later a renowned humanitarian; the latter a jurist who graced 
Ohio's supreme bench with dignity and learning. It was Jacob Brinker- 
hoff, who, as a member of congress, was the actual author of the famous 
Wilmot Proviso, the original draft of which was in his possession at the 
time of his death. It is said that having drawn the same he distributed 
copies among a number of Free Soil members of the House of Congress 
with the understanding that the one who could first catch the speaker's 
eye should offer it. The opportunity fell to David Wilmot, of Pennsyl- 
vania, whose name has thus come down to history. 

Winfield Scott Kerr, who rose from a crippled railroad brakeman to 
a prominent place in Congress, Michael D. Harter, Congressman and 
head of the great Aultman and Taylor Company; a genial gentleman, 
patriot and public spirited — both were known to all Ohio. 

Mordecai Bartley, a wilderness settler, was the thirteenth Governor 
of Ohio. I could multiply these examples of your fellow citizens worthy 
of mention did time permit. Let me make reference to our late lamented 
friend, Henry C. Hedges, one of the best beloved men of Ohio, whose 
kindly interest in young men will ever remain a great spot in my recol- 
lection. 

I should fail utterly in my duty to his memory and to his great 
achievements did I not mention that great statesman, John Sherman, 
one of the fathers of the Republican party. He began his remarkable 
public career with his election to congress in 1855. Throughout the dark 
and stormy years of the Civil War he served his country in Congress — 
in both House and Senate — and remained continuously in the public 
ser\'ice, either in the Senate or the Cabinet, until 1898. For forty-three 
years he helped to write the glorious record of the Republic in statute 

38 



law and service in the Cabinet. No man in our public life has rendered 
more distinguished or valuable services than Senator Sherman. 

The especial thought in my mind today is the inter-dependence and 
the mutuality of interest of all our people. One could underwrite the 
good fortunes of mankind if he could guarantee in prosperity and frater- 
nity — that common interest— which is born of adversity. The Pilgrim 
Fathers laid their eternal foundations of new-world liberty in grim neces- 
sity, and the same spirit, the same concord, the same mutuality followed 
every pioneering step in the development of the republic. 

The tendency of class consciousness is a product of developing 
fortunes, and is both a reflex of achievement and a menace to maintained 
progress. We must caution against class distinction and class conflict at 
every step. 

Here in the Middle West, where farming is free from tenantry and 
holds to the normal way, and manufacturing is mainly confined to the 
plants of that moderate size which indexes the surpassing fabric of Amer- 
ican industry, we have the touch of intimacy and that closer understand- 
ing which emphasizes the thought I have in mind. We cannot promote 
agriculture alone, because the factory is necessary to the making of a 
market. We cannot foster the factory and ignore agriculture, because 
the farm is our base of food supply. 

I can readily recall forty-cent wheat, flayed from the fields of Rich- 
land and Morrow. That was before industry developed the home con- 
sumer, that was before railways and improved highways opened the way 
to markets. That was when farming was a fight for subsistence, instead 
of the present-day pursuit of attainment. That was before luxury became 
the by-product of farm and factory. That was before the age of agricul- 
tural machinery, that was when we cradled the wheat and toiled from 
sunrise to sunset, that was before wealth had been taken from the earth 
to alter the way of our civilization. 

I trust no one will misquote me as saying I believe in forty-cent 
wheat, because I have indulged my memory. Sometimes we are very 
unfair in handling the utterances of public men. I remember, when the 
Senate was discussing the war-time guarantee on wheat, when we felt 
we ought to give the American farmer that assurance which would en- 
courage a seeding to guard against war famine, a western Senator was 
arguing that wheat could not be raised for less than $2.50 a bushel. I in- 
terrupted him to say that I well recalled that Ohio farmers, in pre-war 
days, had rejoiced to get a dollar for their wheat. I was speaking of nor- 
mal days prior to the war. You will bear me witness that I spoke fairly 
and correctly. Yet there are those today who seek to convey that I said 
a dollar a bushel is enough for wheat today. I am not so annoyed at the 

39 



silly untruth as I am distressed at the affront to ordinary intelligence. 

Pardon the diversion. I was recalling the old-time low level of prices, 
to recall at the same time the peoples' inability to buy, and to remind you 
that mounting farm prices, mounting wages, mounting expenditures — 
all are inseparably linked, and a grim mutuality will ultimately assert 
itself no matter what we do. But a mindfulness of this mutuality will 
spare us the inequalities and the grievances which come of forced ad- 
justment. 

There is no living today or tomorrow according to the standards of 
yesterday. Every normal being is looking forward. We collect more 
federal taxes in one year than the entire wealth of the republic a century 
ago. Only a little while ago our grievances about taxes were wholly local, 
because a half century of Republican control of the federal government 
held us free from direct burdens. But the changed policy, the demo- 
cratic drift to freedom of trade which is international rather than nation- 
al, and mounting cost of government and finally war burdens, turned 
federal taxation to a colossal burden. No one seriously complained while 
the national crisis hung over us, but we must work a readjustment for 
stabilized and prosperous peace. We ought to make wealth bear its full 
share of tax burdens, and we ever will. Having this thought in mind and 
also thinking of the excessive cost of living, I doubt if the excess profits 
tax for war precisely accomplishes the end we seek in peace, though we 
do not disagree about the worthy intent. Its operations have been dis- 
appointing, its costs multiplied and pyramided, and righteous changes 
and modifications ought be sought at an early day. I would gladly recom- 
mend a change, but I am not yet prepared to suggest an equitable sub- 
stitute, though I should have no hesitancy in asking Congress to seek the 
earliest possible solution. The reduced cost of government is already 
pledged, and reduced appropriation by Congress is already recorded. 
We must not paralyze American production by taxation at home or de- 
structive competition from abroad, because our mutual interest in pro- 
ductivity has made us what we are. 

Despite all the deprecation, I cannot bring myself to accept the 
notion that the inter-relation among our men and women has departed. 
We are a democratic people. Our state was founded by people who 
brought with them the ancient social customs of neighborhood confra- 
ternity — that tie that knits communities together, whose widening circle 
makes of the mass a homogeneous people. 

It is good that our producing interests are diversified. In that lies 
our great strength as a nation. The manufacturing centers and the food- 
producing areas complement and supplement each other. These two 
grand divisions are bound together by common ties of nationality, of 

40 



history and of aspiration. Tiiere is not and there must be no conflict be- 
tween them. Our imperial domain provides us with the material means 
of our greatness. There is a disposition of some to inveigh against one 
section or another, as selfish interest may suggest, but the broad national 
welfare contemplates no East and no West, no North and no South. Pride 
and locality is most commendable but patriotism is not sectional. Po- 
litically we may divide as God gives us to see the right, but materially, 
socially and economically we must be an entity — united, harmonious 
and interdependent. 

I rejoice to recall that when the great world war summoned our sons 
duty and to death, perhaps, there was no question about geography. 
The boys of the North 'dressed front' with the sons of the South, and all 
went triumphantly forward to undying fame, never questioning the 
origin or the environment, much less the locality of their comrades. Up- 
on the mossy rocks in the gloomy and fateful forests of the Argonne are 
commingled the blood of the plains and of the metropolis, with that of 
the boys of the Great Lakes and sons from the land of the palmetto and 
the fragrant magnolia. 

By cultivating the spirit of friendliness, by a recognition of inter- 
dependence, the problems of life are made much easier for all. There is a 
growing tendency to look to government for all remedies, forgetting 
there are natural laws that will operate to correct evils, if given a fair 
chance. Oftentimes well-meaning laws defeat the very object they are 
designed to accomplish. 

If the great world war held for us nothing else, it did teach us that 
there is something more than gain to be striven for in this world. We can 
hail the lofty and blessed rule of commingling friendship. Having given 
our splendid lesson, let us present to the world another example, that of 
concord among ourselves, and make America safe for Americans and the 
loftiest example of representative democracy. 

Our country holds out opportunity to all, but upon the supreme 
condition that those who would avail themselves of that opportunity 
shall be entirely worthy, and know and accept fully the spirit of American 
institutions. 

There is an example in both Richland and Marion of the making of 
Americans who were foreign born, which all America might well ponder. 
Many hundreds of your neighbors and mine came from lands across the 
sea. They came to become citizens and accept the obligations as well as 
the advantages of American citizenship. We welcomed them cordially, 
and they became participants in our activities, sharers in our disappoint- 
ments and our triumphs. They walked with us in the fraternity and 
mutuality of citizenship, and are of the empire builders and the republic's 
defenders. 

41 



Out of varied nativity we wrought American nationality. Out of 
old world representatives, resolved to start anew, in supreme mutuality 
of interest, we wrought the loftiest example of representative democracy 
the world has known. I utter my gratitude as a fellow-citizen, and want 
to supplement it with my conviction as a Republican, charged with party 
spokesmanship, that our highest duty is to cling to the fundamentals on 
which we builded to world astonishment and hold fast to the nationality 
which inspired our onward march. 

Between Marion and Mansfield is an interesting illustration of na- 
tional adjustment to the program of progress. The Erie Railroad, once 
the old Atlantic and Great Western, was originally broad-gauged and 
single track. It could fairly serve only its constituency, because its cars 
could not transfer to other lines. One day, memorable for its engineering 
feat, it was reduced to standard gauge in a few hours, then it could trans- 
fer its cargoes to other lines as v/ell as receive shipments sent from afar. 
It yielded to the standard of mutuality. Later on, development de- 
manded the double track. Those of you who have noted it, will recall 
that the original track follows one grade, the new track is builded to an- 
other, yet they are used with like frequency, one one way, and one the 
other way. The thoughtful engineers, adjusted the new grade to the 
trend of trafiBc, and difficult grades were avoided. To the passing eye 
these tracks are not of the same line, but actually they are, retaining the 
original and adjusting the new to ease the loads over the grades. Is there 
not an application in the advancing way of America? We must cling to 
the sure route of splendid development and meet the new demands by 
so building as to eliminate the grades by which our activities are im- 
peded. 



42 



A SPEECH BY SENATOR WARREN G. HARDING 

TO DELEGATION FROM WAYNE COUNTY, 

OHIO, MARION, OHIO, AUGUST 4, 1920 

Judge Taggart, Ladies and Gentlemen: 

I like the sentiments you have expressed, particularly those relating 
to your "community of homes — American homes — where American 
thought and American ideas flourish." If we only cling to lofty American 
ideas, and steadfastly and becomingly think of America first, there need 
be no doubt about the future of this Republic. 

You must be confidently and fearlessly American to measure to the 
renowned name of Wayne. The story of Wayne County is that of the 
great beginning of the Northwest territory, whose sturdy citizenship was 
strengthened by the hardships of the forest pioneer. We contemplate the 
Ohio of today, little dreaming of the heroism recorded in its making, 
little realizing what a century and a quarter has wrought, little appreci- 
ating what we owe to those who faced the dangers of the wilderness to 
make our present-day commonwealth of homes. The pioneers gave the . 
conquering westward march of civilization, our obligations are to pre- 
serve and defend. Some day I hope we shall fittingly commemorate the 
sacrifices and the achievements of those courageous frontiersmen and 
their strong-hearted women. Perhaps they did not dream of the empire 
of today, but they had implanted in their hearts the westward planting 
of the outposts of the new world civilization. If the discovering Spaniard 
stood only at the gateway and marveled, these messengers of indepen- 
dence, nationality and American hope halted midway to the Mississippi, 
and had no dreams beyond. Their achievements are unparalleled in all 
the world's history. Theirs was the prelude to the supreme revealment, 
Theirs was the unveiling of a physically incomparable land, and they 
reared sons and daughters who crossed the trackless plains, defied moun- 
tains and desert, and made the supreme conquest of nature, the like of 
which the earth no longer offers opportunity. Call it the miracle of hu- 
man achievement, if you will, there is nothing in all human history to 
match this triumph of human courage and endurance. 

It is good to recall their virtues, their customs, their ideas, because of 
these came the inheritance of present-day America. They held a simple 
faith and lived simple lives. They knew the essentials of achievement, 
and sought it through the wisdom of experience, though they blazed the 
way of many an experiment to hasten accomplishment. They didn't 
indulge many finely-spun theories, there were not many "isms" them. 
They faced stubborn facts, and dwelt in grim determination. They were 

43 



not asking what the Republic could do for them, they were seeking to do 
for themselves and thereby add to the glory of the Republic. They had 
initiative, courage, self-dependence, self-confidence, and they found in- 
centive and inspiration in the things to be done. They had all of sym- 
pathy, all of naturalness, all of faith. They were deeply religious, help- 
fully religious, and builded altars of worship and houses for schools with 
the morrow in mind for generations to come, and knew little of govern- 
ment and less of law, but justice was a part of their daily lives. They 
wrought in hardship and denial, to treasure in pride. It need not be sur- 
prising that they held this America of ours at a little higher value than 
those who came later to find a land not finished but revealed, with oppor- 
tunity calling where they had planted that same opportunity. 

It is worth remembering that the pioneers — those stalwart makers of 
America — were little less varied in their origin than our people of today. 
Either they or their forebears came from lands across the sea. But they 
were thinking only of America. Theirs was more than sole allegiance to 
the land of adoption, they were interested and devoted heart and soul. 
They were in complete unison, with one purpose, one confidence, one 
pride. They probably had affectionate thought of kinsfolk across the 
seas, but time, distance and conditions made them a people apart. Liter- 
ally they were in a new world, far away, with a new people's destiny to 
work out. When we marvel at the miracle, their unity is the explanation. 
When we wonder that they succeeded, their oneness of thought helps us 
to understand. 

We have only to recall their situation to understand many of the 
policies and pronouncements of those days. They could have no concep- 
tion of our present-day attainments. Hamilton, who conceived, and 
Washington, who sponsored, wise as they were, little dreamed of either 
a development or a solution like ours of today. But they were right in 
fundamentals. They knew what was safe, and preached security. 

One may doubt if either of them — if any of the founders — would wish 
America to hold aloof from the world. But there has come to me lately 
a new realization of the menace to our America in European entangle- 
ments which emphasizes the prudence of Washington, though he could 
little have dreamed the thought which is in my mind. 

When I sat on the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and lis- 
tened to American delegations appealing in behalf of kinsmen or old 
home-folk across the seas, I caught the aspirations of nationality, and a 
perfectly natural sympathy among kindred in this Republic. But I little 
realized then how we might rend the concord of American citizenship in 
our seeking to solve old-world problems. 

There have come to me, not at all unbecomingly, the expressed anxie- 

44 



ties of Americans foreign-born, who are asking our country's future atti- 
tude on territorial awards in the adjustment of peace. They are Ameri- 
cans all, but they have a proper and natural interest in the fortunes of 
kinsfolk and native land. One can not blame them. If our land is to 
settle the envies, rivalries, jealousies and hatreds of all civilization, these 
adopted sons of the Republic want the settlement favorable to the lands 
from which they came. 

The misfortune is not alone that it rends the concord of nations, the 
greater pity is that it rends the concord of our citizenship at home. It is 
folly to think of blending Greek and Bulgarian, Italian and Slovac, or 
making any of them rejoicingly American when the land of adoption sits 
in judgment on the land from which he came. 

Governor Coolidge spoke the other day of the rescue of America from 
the reactions of the war. We also need to be rescued from the visionary 
and fruitless pursuit of peace through super-government. I do not want 
Americans of foreign birth making their party alignments on what we 
mean to do for some nation in the old world. We want them to be Repub- 
licans because of what we mean to do for the United States of America. 
Our call is for unison, not rivalling sympathies. Our need is concord, not 
the antipathies of long inheritance. 

Surely, no one stopped to think where the great world-experiment 
was leading, frankly, no one could know. We are only learning now. It 
would be a sorry day for this Republic if we allowed our activities in 
seeking for peace in the old world to blind us to the essentials of peace 
at home. 

There is another thought relating to concord so essential to continued 
advancement. It was said the other day that the Democratic Parry 
meant especially to appeal to the farmers and the wage-earners, and let 
America forget the failure of the world experiment. If America can be 
made to forget the attempted barter of nationality, well and good. It 
would be better if we could forget. But when nationality is surrendered 
to internationality, little else matters, and all appeal is vain. There is 
only one other menace so threatening our tranquility. That menace is the 
appeal to class in determining what our government is to be. I would hold 
myself unworthy of your confidence if I spoke an appeal to either farmers 
or wage-earners because of their larger numbers. We wish the confidence 
of all. 

You said. Judge Taggart, this delegation comes from shop, store' 
factory, office and farm. We could not well get along without any of them 
We must exchange as well as produce, and we must teach and preach in 
order to attain as well as acquire. 

45 



There isn't any governmental part in fixing pursuit, profession or 
employment. Perhaps I ought to modify that and say — except during 
war. Government did interfere for the war, and we want to end that In- 
terference. We want a free America again. We want America free at 
home, and free in the world. We want to silence the outcry of nation 
against nation, in the fullness of understanding, and we wish to silence 
the cry of class against class, and stifle the party appeal to class so that 
we may insure tranquility in our own freedom. If I could choose but one, 
I had rather have industrial and social peace at home than command the 
international peace of all the world. 

In the study of the great world tragedy, some one has pointed out 
that the World War might have been avoided if united Germany had 
adopted that feature of our constitution which gives to Congress the 
right to declare war. Many advocates of pacifism think our safeguards 
are not enough, that there should be a referendum to the people before a 
war. The other extreme is found among those who seriously propose that 
a council of foreign powers shall summon the sons of this Republic to 
war anywhere in the world. I emphatically agree that no authority other 
than Congress may call our boys to battle. Accepting this truth, why 
make a covenant which violates the good faith of nations? 

Suppose that under the military alliance and the super-authority of 
Article X, a program of armed force is agreed upon, and the Congress of 
the United States declines to respond. The executive would be called 
upon to carry on a war without constitutional authority, or we should 
prove our compact no more than a scrap of paper. We are on the side of 
both safety and honor to hold for ourselves the decision of our obligations 
to the world. We have ever played a becoming part in human progress, we 
will not fail to play it in that freedom of conscience and action which be- 
fits a confident republic. Men prate about violated obligations to the 
nations of the earth. The solemn truth is that our part in the World War 
was an obligation to ourselves, performed in sympathy with associated, 
not allied, powers, and our splendid part in helping to win the war was 
the armed manifestation of American conscience, not the fulfillment of a 
written obligation. 

Once more, Judge Taggart, I want to revert to your reference to your 
county as a community of homes. Such is the ideal community. The 
pioneers whom I was recalling, wrought their homes out of the wilder- 
ness. The possession of homes was their inspiration. In these modern 
days homes are wrought through industry and thrift. We have pro- 
gressed to the modern standards, outside the great cities, where home- 
owning is the first step toward competence and wholesome contentment. 
The American system, with its equality of opportunity has opened the 

46 



way, and the American Constitution with its guaranty of civil liberty 
makes possession secure. A home-owning people might well be the great 
goal of the Republic, because at every fireside centers all of hope, all of 
ambition, all of education, all of aspiration. The big thing in our land is 
this offering of opportunity, and the Republican Party means to main- 
tain a government and make secure conditions which will guarantee a 
fair chance to every citizen and bid him drink of our freedom and know 
its rewards. 

It is impossible to definitely fix our course amid the unusual condi- 
tions in the wake of war. The world has to steady down. We have been 
talking about getting back to normal. That doesn't mean the old order, 
that doesn't mean looking backward. It is the short and easy way of 
saying "Again to Stability," "Once More to Regularity." There hasn't 
been a backward look in America for three hundred years, but the man 
who faces the future with highest assurances is he who has noted the 
paths which made his progress secure. We Republicans hold that the 
inherited plans of constitutional, representative popular government, 
with its inspirations of nationality and a fair chance for every man, have 
enabled us to write the supreme story of human and national advance- 
ment in all the world, and we mean to hold the inheritance secure and go 
confidently on to greater and grander achievement. 



A SPEECH BY SENATOR WARREN G. HARDING 

TO REPUBLICAN PRESS, MARION, OHIO, 

AUGUST 13, 1920 

Gentlemen of the Republican Press: — The passing years have 
wrought great changes in the newspaper business even in the com- 
paratively short time since my adventurous entry upon it. The prolific 
inventors of printing machinery and other appliances have borne their 
share in it; the free rural delivery, the advance in education, bringing 
new multitudes of readers, have all had their influence in the develop- 
ments and evolutions which have followed. I can remember when in 
most of the count^^-seat towns the possession by one of the papers of a 
power press — even if the power was applied by a husky man attached to 
a cranked wheel — was widely proclaimed as an evidence of astounding 
prosperity and recognized as a potential influence. 

We who are gathered here have seen the type-setting machines come 
in — not to supplant the hand compositor, but to shift him to the "Ad. 
Alleys" and the job cases. They have taught the printers as the mowers 

47 



and reapers have taught the farmers that increased capacity in pro- 
duction does not mean a lessening of a demand for labor, but on the 
contrary increased production, through increased efficiency, mental, 
manual or mechanical, opens new avenues for employment and brings 
luxuries into the class of common commodities. 

Weeklies Diminished 

The diminished numbers of country weekly publications came in the 
extension of the rural delivery mail carriers. We learned that the farm- 
er who got his mail every morning at his front door would not wait a 
week or even two or three days for his newspaper. He had learned, too, 
what market reports meant to him. Machinery had lightened his toil and 
shortened his hours, except seasonably, and he had time to read and 
the desire to be informed. The telephones had brought him in touch 
with some news centers and he heard hints which he wanted confirmed. 
Electricity lighted many farm houses and lengthened the reading period. 

The rural delivery with the parcel post also wiped out many of the 
cross roads stores where the rural dweller was wont to gather for neigh- 
borly gossip and discussion of great events, and this, too, had its in- 
fluence in broadening the demand for the daily paper. 

Another change was brought about by two causes. In the days of 
thirty or forty years ago, there was a bitterness and acerbity about polit- 
ical discussion which caused the factional newspaper to multiply if not 
to flourish. It was not difficult to start a newspaper in those days. Avery 
small amount of cash and a little credit would procure a modest plant, 
and another journal would be "established" to fight its owner's quar- 
rels and divide the limited patronage of its limited field. 
High Cost of Printing 

But now it costs real money to equip a newspaper plant — to install 
linotype machines, fast presses and type in quantities, and it costs a 
"fortune" to buy news print. The "high cost of printing" has had its 
way with us and we find fewer but generally better newspapers than we 
had in the Ohio counties when our population was half what it is now. 

The changes have been great, but I question whether they have all 
been in the nature of improvements. The old-time paper — going back to 
the last half of last century — was usually a real journal of opinion. It 
reflected the convictions as well as the opinions of its owner and editor, 
and it was a real moulder of opinion in its influence upon its readers 
and the community it served. The editors were not always great writers, 
but they were generally patriots, and honestly desirous to render service. 
And they were generally partisan and they preached party gospel and 
believed in it. Sometimes it seems to me that the transition from the 
party organ to the "independent" newspaper, so-called, has not been an 

48 



unmixed blessing. The partisan newspaper, in its editorial expression, 
uttered the considered views of a large element of our citizenship, while 
the "independent" paper is often the organ solely of its owner, or it is 
colorlessly neutral. 

A Great Temptation 

I am glad therefore that you came here today as partisans — Republi- 
can partisans — believing in the formulated policies of the Republican 
party and having faith in its purposes, honesty, capacity and courage. 

There is a temptation today to blend shop talk with politics, be- 
cause I know how intimately you are thinking of the problem of news 
print, the cost of which has added so excessively to the expense account 
of every newspaper. Men speak of immediate relief, but the problem is 
too big for that. 

Permanent and ample relief must come by going to the underlying 
causes. No forest consumption like ours can go on indefinitely without 
imperiling our pulpwood supply. Competent authority tells us that the 
pulpwood in New York state will be exhausted in ten years, that New 
England will be denuded of its supply in twenty years. Our needs are 
so vast that we imported nearly one and a half million tons of pulpwood 
from Canada in 1918, and the Canadian price advanced from ten to 
twenty-five dollars per cord. It is obvious that we must have a forest 
policy which shall make us self-reliant once more. We ought to be 
looking ahead to produce our timber for our pulpwood needs and also 
our timber for our lumber needs. Forest conservation is a necessary ac- 
companiment to printing expansion, and a matter of common concern 
to all the people. 

Eighty Million Idle Acres 

Three-fifths of the original timber in this country is gone, and there 
are eighty million idle acres in which we ought to be growing forests for 
the future. Planning for the future, with added protection of our present 
forests from fire is a matter of deep concern to publishers in particular, 
but all of constructive America as well. 

But I want to turn your thoughts to a service in our columns. There 
is one service for the American press, not partisan but patriotic, for 
which there is a call today such as we have never known before. America 
needs a baptism in righteousness and a new consecration in morality. 

It was stated the other day that a reflex of the war has been so re- 
vealed in broken obligations and betrayed trusts that the bonding com- 
panies are called upon to meet such losses that the whole schedule 
for fidelity policies must be rewritten. If my information is correct, 
the security companies have never been called upon to meet so many 
and such heavv losses in all the history of that business. 

49 



Betrayals of Trust 

Probably the betrayals of trust, the smaller ones at least, are in part 
due to the high cost of living, and the failure of salary scales to respond 
to the new demands of the salaried working forces. Many instances are 
reported, however, where salaries were ample to meet even extravagant 
practices, and the sums stolen were beyond all limits which might attend 
living costs. The conclusion is forced that it is a reflex of the moral 
degeneracy of war, of the barbarity and cunning, and ruthlessness and 
greed in war's aftermath. 

There was so much of extravagance, so much of waste, so much 
of needless expenditures in seeking for speed in war preparation, that the 
government often was robbed without scruple of conscience, often with- 
out hindrance. It is not surprising to find a reflex in offices and counting- 
rooms. 

Old Standards of Honesty 

Call it reaction if you like, we need the old standards of honesty, 
the lofty standards of fidelity. If I could call for but one distinction, 
I would like ours to be known as an honest people. We need the stamp 
of common, every-day honesty, everywhere. We need it in business, 
we need it in labor, we need it in professions, in pulpits, in editorial 
rooms, in circulation count. Aye, we need it in politics, in government, 
in our daily lives. Dishonesty and corruption had more to do with the 
Russian revolution than all the cruelty of autocracy. 

If governments and their diplomats in Europe had been honest, there 
would have been no war. If everybody concerned had been rigidly 
honest, peace might have followed the armistice within ninety days. 
If we could only be genuinely honest with one another, we could put an 
end to industrial and social unrest, and if we were only honest with 
God, we would become a moral and religious people again. 

To Clear Our Vision 

I suppose some people will say I am "looking backward". But if we 
may look backward to clear our vision we may look forward more 
confidently, and lift our gaze above and beyond the sordid and selfish 
things and the baser side of life so horridly revealed when passions are 
aflame. There is sure progress for a simple-living, reverent people, 
fearing God, and loving righteousness. It is good to look back to make 
sure of the way religious mothers taught and then face the front with 
renewed faith. 

If we are living in the past to recall the widsom of Washington, the 
equal rights of Jefferson, the genius of Hamilton, the philosophy of 
Franklin, or the sturdiness of Jackson; if it is looking backward to re- 
call the sympathy and steadfastness of Lincoln, the restoration of Mc- 

SO 



Kinley or the awakening by Roosevelt, I am happy to drink of the past 
for my inspiration for the morrow. 

Engineering is a scientific pursuit and a very accurate one. It has 
been my fortune to witness some railway surveys, and I never knew an 
engineer who did not turn his transit to his back-sight to make sure 
of his line by which we were to move on. We are thinking today of 
the route by which America is to go on. The past is secure, and I would 
like to project our future course on the security of the past. 
Ever>' Hope is of Tomorrow 

Something has been said lately about looking to the sunrise of to- 
morrow, not the sky-line of the setting sun. Every hope in life is of 
tomorrow, we could not live yesterday again if we would. But the 
glory of ten thousand morrows was wrought in the wisdom gleaned on 
yesterday. Mariners and planters and harvesters — all study the sky. 
Sometimes above the sky-line, in lands where the desert stretches, there 
is the mirage, with its lure to the fevered and thirsting, with inviting 
promise of relief. It has speeded travel and revived hopes, and spurned 
waning strength, it has diverted from proven routes, and left death and 
destruction as its monument to broken promises. In the horizon of 
Republicanism and maintained constitutionalism, there is no mirage to 
lure the American caravan, but we mean to go securely on, over the 
proven routes of triumph for the republic and the people thereof. 

No one agency can render a greater service in holding to the charted 
way than a conscientious and patriotic American press. But it must 
remain free, utterly free, along with freedom of speech, freedom of 
religious belief, and the freedom of righteous pursuit, it must be honest 
and it ever must be rejoicing in American nationality which is our price- 
less possession. 



51 



A SPEECH BY SENATOR WARREN G. HARDING 
TO DELEGATION OF LUMBERMEN, 
MARION, OHIO, AUGUST 18, 1920 ^ 

Fellow Lumbermen: I think I may use that term without criticism 
because I once claimed membership in the fraternity which is peculiarly 
that of the lumber world. Though I have been somewhat connected 
with the business, I do not claim that intimacy which makes me ac- 
quainted with your many problems which call for highly intelligent so- 
lution. 

Your relation to the public is a very important one. Your connection 
is with a basic industry in construction. We could make little practical 
progress without the lumber forces of the land in effective service in 
some form or other. Man fashions a very preponderant portion of his 
constructive work out of the lumber facilities of the land. It little mat- 
ters that we are finding a goodly number of substitutes, because of the 
diminishing lumber supply. The timber of the country is still a first es- 
sential in a thousand enterprises and many of our most constructive 
endeavors. 

War's First Great Excess 

It is easy to recall how the nation turned to its lumber forces in 
the early anxieties of the war. You were called into service at the first 
command and the call upon the lumber industry was the first great ex- 
cess in all our war activities. It is a matter of very great satisfaction 
that you responded so effectively as you did. I shall not speak of the 
infinite waste and the mounting cost incident to war activities, our pres- 
ent concern is that of peace. Ours is a nation of homes. The realization 
of our highest hopes lies in the continued construction and improved 
character of our homes, because they have the first influence in the stand- 
ard of American living. Quite apart from furnishings and the almost lim- 
itless numbers of varied utilities, lumber is the first requirement of the 
prospective home-builder. The importance is emphasized by the remin- 
der that America needs 4,000,000 additional homes today. Any people 
which can not dependably rely upon its lumber supply would face a very 
serious situation. 

I am thinking particularly of that constructive work which means 
the continued building of homes for the housing of a people which must 
ever continue to elevate the American standard of living. Ours is already 
the highest in the world, but we must ever continue to lift the standard 
still higher. 

52 



Halting in Construction 

At the present time there is a notable halting in the construction of 
homes because of the almost prohibitive cost. Lumber plays its very 
conspicuous part therein. Much of this, of course, relates to the in- 
creased cost of production which dates from the changed conditions since 
our entrance into the World War, but there is a permanent inclination 
to advance in cost because of the very manifest diminution of supply. 

No one can be blind to the fact that during the tremendous growth 
of the republic, during the past half century, we have been drawing on 
our natural timber supply without a thought of the future. The Amer- 
ican Forestry Association has given us figures to show that three-fifths 
of the original timber of the country has been consumed. It is of little 
value to recall the waste with which we have cut our timber, except that 
we ought to have learned lessons which will enable us to avoid so much 
of waste in the future. 

I remember making a visit to the Hawaiian islands some five years 
ago and was greatly interested to find a very considerable lumber en- 
terprise there, which was engaged in salvaging the stumpage of a certain 
hardwood which had been cut over years before. With a new realization 
of the diminishing supply this lumber enterprise was laboriously taking 
the stumpage from the ground and turning what was one time con- 
sidered useless into a very valuable produce in lumber commerce. It 
was impossible, of course, to have practiced such a program of conserva- 
tion in the early days of abundancee when no one could readily contem- 
plate the exhaustibility of our supply, but we have learned the lesson now 
and we have not only to conserve, but we ought to have a national 
policy of preservation and reforestration. 

In Large Part Responsible 

No one disputes that lumber prices are in large part responsible 
for the halting in the house-building movement. Lumber prices have 
increased very sharply since the war and prices in many instances have 
gone up three hundred per cent above those of pre-war period. When 
diminished forest supply and increased cost of production and increased 
cost of distribution are linked together it is not surprising that these 
unfortunate conditions are confronting us. 

The one thing which the government may do is to adopt that policy 
which will assure to future generations the timber which is necessary 
to our lumber needs. In our section of the country the supply is almost 
entirely exhausted. The diminution in the soft-wood forests of New 
England, and lake states, and even the South, has been steady and 
continuous. Many watchful students of the situation think that another 
decade is going to put the South in a condition where it can do no more 

53 



than meet its own demands. There remains a large supply on the Pacific 
coast but the problem of transportation makes this supply unavailable 
to the East and Middle West, unless we contemplate a cost of transpor- 
tation which will continue to discourage building enterprise. 

Ample Lands for It 

It is common knowledge that there is ample land in this country of 
ours, not adapted to other uses, to produce a sufficient supply of timber 
for all our needs, if it is only stocked with trees and nature is allowed 
to contribute toward our necessities. We must begin to think of timber 
crops as we do other cultivation in this land of ours, and we must put 
an end to that carelessness and neglect to which we trace our destructive 
forest fires. With timber growing on the one hand, and forest preser- 
vation and protection, on the other hand, there isn't any reason why the 
United States should not be self-reliant in the great essential of lumber 
for construction purposes. It is perfectly practicable and feasible to pro- 
vide for a new growth of timber and an imperative duty to improve our 
forest protection. I can think of no forward look, in relation to the good 
fortunes of America, which does not contemplate a forest policy which 
will assure us the essential in the lumber line for all our constructive 
activities. 

Substitution and supersedure will not alone relieve the threatening 
situation. As our civilization advances we shall build less wastefully and 
temporarily than characterize the construction of the developing period. 
This is the story of human progress. Permanent housing more dependably 
constructed, always follows the temporary efforts incident to develop- 
ment but no change of policy will ever eliminate our lumber needs. 

I have sought to emphasize the thought of reforestration because I 
think it is highly essential for the United States of America to ever be 
thinking of self-reliance. We are so blessed with God's bounty, so varied 
in our productivity and so boundless in our resources that the combina- 
tion of American genius and a committal to conservation and cultivation 
will leave us independent of the resources or the activities of the remain- 
der of the world. 



54 



A SPEECH BY SENATOR WARREN G. HARDING 
TO DELEGATION OF INDIANS, MARION, 
OHIO, AUGUST 18, 1920 

I only wanted to say, in reply, I am very glad to have you call in 
the capacity of a party candidate, because you, like all other citizenship 
of the Republic, are interested in party policies and party nominees, 
from whom must come those who are in authority in government. I am 
particularly interested to have you come here. I wonder if you know 
that you are now in the section of the last stamp — the last peaceful 
stamp — of the Indian in the great Middle West. The Greenville treaty 
line, which extended eastward from Greenville and then northward to 
the Lakes, gave the dozen tribes of Indians in Ohio and Indiana their 
fixed reserv'ation and encouraged them to abide as peaceful partici- 
pants until, as late as 1843 and in that year the last of the Indians left this 
State of Ohio and it is rather an interesting thing to recall, in connection 
therewith, that when the Wyandots left here in 1843, there went with 
them William Walker, a half-breed Wyandot, who became the first ter- 
ritorial Governor of Nebraska, and I think it will be accepted, without 
contradiction, that this half-breed Wyandot was one of the most suc- 
cessful territorial Governors in all the United States. 

I speak of it, as it is appropriate, as an indication of the Indian to 
care for his own government affairs, so far as consistent with popular 
government. I have heard something, as a member of the Senate, about 
the dissatisfaction of many of the Indian residents of this country but 
it has not been my good fortune to know of it in detail, because, as you 
know, all members of the Senate do not give their attention to all sub- 
jects of government, because it isn't within human capacity for one to 
know all these things. 

I think you and I will agree about one basic principle and that is, 
that the American Indian is just as much entitled to a square deal as 
anyone else in the Republic and if we should be called to responsibility 
he will get it, and I would like to think, while we are talking about 
democracy and humanit)" and idealism, that this Republic had far better 
bestow it on the native American, whose lands the white man took, 
rather than waste American lives trying to make sure of that bestowal 
thousands of miles across the sea. I believe in the policy of promoting 
and bestowing and elevating and encouraging and establishing the ideals 
of democracy in America first and the American Indian is just as much 
entitled to that which righteously comes to him as any other citizen of 
the Republic. 



You take that message to your fellow Americans from me and 
whether I am elected to the Presidency or not, I will still be a member 
of the Senate a little while and I will be happy to join with my voice in 
asking for justice to the American Indian. 

I am glad to have you call. I wish I could take you about here and 
introduce you to the musical names in this section that all come from the 
Indian days. I was raised along the banks of the Old Olentangy. By 
the way, some one in the West has bestowed an Indian name on Mrs. 
Harding. I think they call her "Snowbird" with the suggestion that 
meant "hard worker." You tell the Indians in the West if they are be- 
stowing names for busy workers, they should bestow one on me. 

I shall be glad to see you in Washington, the seat of our government. 



A SPEECH BY SENATOR WARREN G. HARDING 

TO OHIO GENERAL ASSEMBLY, MARION 

OHIO, AUGUST 19, 1920 

Text of Harding's Speech 

Members and Former Members of the Ohio General Assembly: It is 
a very gratifying thing to have your visit, and be able to greet you today. 
I take a particular pleasure in this, because of my previous association 
with the Ohio General Assembly. 

Like many another public man, I began my public service as a mem- 
ber of the Ohio Legislature and came to my first knowledge, in that as- 
sociation, with the responsibilities and anxieties of a conscientious public 
service. I went to the General Assembly, as a member of the Upper 
House, some twenty years ago, with that state of mind which sometimes 
characterizes newspaper work and which has its development in an edi- 
torial writer promptly telling public servants what they ought to do. 

My connection with the senate had not been long until I learned very 
thoroughly that it was one thing to sit at an editor's desk and proclaim, 
without immediate responsibility, what ought to be done, and a very 
different thing to assume that responsibility under one's oath of office. 

Respect for Oath 

It would be a very sorry thing for public men to forget the oath of 
office to which they subscribe in taking up their public responsibilities. 
Somehow there has been a tendency of late to ignore this solemn obliga- 
tion. It is not easy for me to forget the oath which I assumed when I en- 
tered the federal Senate. It was the reminder of that oath that impelled 
me many a time in opposing the unreserved ratification of the league of 

56 



nations covenant which the President had negotiated. I could not accept 
the covenant as written and be faithful to that oath. 

In popular government we have the fundamental law, known as the 
constitution, which is presumed to be altered only in great deliberations. 
It is a safeguard of popular government that legislators, both state and 
federal, take a solemn oath to support that constitution, and so long as 
the oath is faithfully kept we may be sure of the stability of our American 
institutions. 

Another impression which I quickly gathered from my first experience 
in the Ohio senate was that the popular impression concerning the lack of 
integrity in public office was very often erroneous. 

Perhaps there were men in the Ohio general assembly at the time of 
my six years of service, either as a member of the senate or its presiding 
officer, who sometimes, in a small or indirect way, betrayed the trust of 
the public, but such unhappy incidents were very rare exceptions, and it 
was my observation that ninety-nine men out of a hundred were abidingly 
faithful to their obligations and served the people of the state with the 
very highest conscience. 

Progressive Record 

The best proof of the good intention and fidelity of service in the gen- 
eral assembly lies in the splendid progressive record of our wonderful 
state. The first general assembly of Ohio met at Chillicothe, March 4, 
1803. Governor Tiffin, in his message to that assembly, proclaimed our 
constitutional form of government, more or less modeled after the federal 
system, as "The world's best hope." 

The growth and development of Ohio, our manifest part in the prog- 
ress of the Republic, our ever-forward attainments all bespeak the service 
of fidelity and capacity of the general assemblies which have marked the 
history of the Buckeye State for nearly one hundred years. 

There have been scandals now and then, but none of sufficient im- 
portance to in any way challenge the correctness of the form of govern- 
ment or the worthy way in which we have carried out the dictates of the 
constitution. 

A Training Ground 

For a vast majority of our public men, the general assembly has been 
the training ground for public service. If I should find any fault with our 
practices, it lies in the fact that we are too frequently changing the per- 
sonnel. No one can accuse me of havang any selfish ends to serve when I 
say to you that we ought to retain a considerable portion of the member- 
ship of the general assembly for long years of public service, provided 
capable men are found Vv'illing to make the sacrifice, because of the ever- 
widening relationship of legislation and state government to our modern 

57 



affairs, and the problem of knowing even state governments with that 
intimacy which facilitates intelligent action. 

I well remember that my first session in the Ohio senate barely made 
me acquainted with the duties and practices and I am sure I rendered a 
very much more helpful service during my second term with that body. 

It is just as important, of course, ever to be introducing young men 
and new blood, but our bi-annual sessions are so far apart, and the length 
of session is so relatively short that it is not a very easy matter for even 
that membership which continues in the service to keep in intimate touch 
with dependable public sentiment and sympathetically know the wishes 
of the people of the state. 

Jealous of Its Powers 

Probably in no state in all the Union has the general assembly been 
more jealous of its powers than has our own Ohio legislature. It has well 
preserved its independence as a co-ordinate branch of the government. 
During nearly a hundred years of the life of the state the chief executive 
had no veto power over the action of the general assembly, and in the 
belated amendment of the constitution, providing that veto power, it 
was given with such restrictions that the general assembly is little, if any, 
less an independent agency of representative popular government. 

Not a few of the most progressive and effective reforms brought about 
in the state of Ohio had their origin in the general assembly, quite with- 
out recommendation or influence on the part of the executive, and all our 
boasted progression has come from the hands of the general assembly, 
because it could be accomplished in no other way. 

Credit Due Assembly 

Much is said from time to time concerning the progressive policies 
of the State of Ohio, and very frequently credit has been unduly claimed 
by the executive who happened to be in power at the time the reforms 
were registered. As a mere matter of justice, the fact ought to be stated 
that most of these reforms have come through the leadership of house 
and senate, and in many instances, they have been wrought though the 
party in power was of opposite political persuasion from that of the ex- 
ecutive, who has claimed for himself the greater part of the credit. 

It is easy to recall that the first step in Ohio relating to the regula- 
tion of public utilities came from the legislature in 1906, and the initial 
step toward workmen's compensation, and the established right of em- 
ployees to protection in their employment, came from the general as- 
sembly of 1909. There have been enlargements and perfections of these 
efforts of several years ago, but all that our modern statute books contain 
on this subject must be given largely to the credit of the Ohio general 
assembly. 

58 



Signal Reforms Accomplished 

I can well remember some of the signal reforms in state government 
which were accomplished by Republican general assemblies under the 
inspiration of Republican executives. Twenty-four years ago, under the 
administration of Governor Bushnell, we straightened out the frightful 
financial situation into which the state had been plunged — an almost 
invariable result of Democratic administration — put an end to the an- 
ticipation of tax collections and began the era of stable financing for our 
great commonwealth. A little later we began the drive to wipe out the 
indebtedness of the state, and when Governor Nash came into ofhce 
twenty years ago we began and actually effected the elimination of the 
state tax levy. 

Governor Herrick followed after, and a Republican general assembly 
gave to the state during his administration several notable reforms and 
registered new triumphs in rational progress. Under that administration 
came the state depository law, the state banking department and the 
state highway commission. These branches of our government have be- 
come very eflPective agencies in our more modern life, and mark the re- 
sponsiveness of Republican general assemblies to the needs of a growing 
and forward-looking state. 

Later on, during the administration of Governor Willis, a Repub- 
lican general assembly codified and simplified the highway department 
and gave us most signal advancement in the construction of improved 
highways. 

Workmen's Compensation Law 

Still more recently a Republican general assembly, with an executive 
quite without sympathy with its general program, perfected the work- 
men's compensation act, and has given to the workmen of the state prob- 
ably the most nearly ideal law of any state in the Union. I do not at the 
moment recall which Republican assembly wrote our advanced statutes 
protecting child labor in Ohio, but we were the model state in the Union 
before the new freedom or any Democratic apostle of shouting progres- 
sion came to any considerable notice. 

I am not attempting to recite a record of legislative accomplishment. 
I have only made some of these allusions which I recall from memory 
instead of any record at hand, to point out in a very general way the high 
character of the work which the Ohio assembly has ever wrought in the 
interest of all the people of this great state. 

Value of Divided Responsibility 

You and I, jointly, have been witnesses'to the advantages and secur- 
ity in the divided responsibility which comes of two legislative branches. 
There have been propositions at times, in the name of reform, to abolish 

59 



the upper house, but no one will sanction such a proposal if he stops to 
measure the safeguards which lie in the necessary agreement between 
these two legislative bodies. Even when one party has been in unques- 
tioned control of both houses, the deliberate judgment of the one or the 
unalterable purpose of the other has led either to helpful accomplishment 
on the one hand or a saving prudence on the other. 
Surprised at Ignorance 

Some of us have been witnesses to the work of the federal Senate dur- 
ing the past five years, and I confess amazement at the ignorance of some 
who cry out against the senate, or the contempt of others for the senate's 
very proper and constitutional part in federal government. In our own 
state it has been the practice, though not without exception, to send our 
most eminent men to the United States Senate. In easy memory, there 
were Sherman, and Garfield, and Thurman, and Pendelton, and Hanna 
and Foraker. I do not venture to make mention of living ex- members 
from our own state, though I might befittingly utter some very high ap- 
praisals. I do know we mean to send a big and trusted son of Ohio when 
we elect Frank B. Willis, next November. 

It is well known that New York has sent her giants to the senate, and 
Massachusetts gave to the service of the nation her ablest sons. Maine, 
all New England, sent their illustrious statesmen, or they grew illustrious 
in the service, and, our Middle West, and the boundless West and North 
and South — all sent to the Senate the foremost men they boasted. 
Not Disparaging House 

I am not disparaging the House of Congress. Indeed, I could enter- 
tain no such thought. Many of the brilliant contributors to American 
state-craft have left the impress of their exceptional statesmenship on 
the activities of the House of Congress. There has ever been genius and 
statesmanship and high ability and lofty purpose in the membership of 
that body; but with rare exceptions, like that of Reed and Cannon, and 
McKinley and Giddings, the House was ever the training school for em- 
inent activities in the Senate. Scores of conspicuous figures in the Senate 
today had their beginning in the Lower House. Lodge and Brandegee, 
Curtis and Lenroot, Nelson and Townsend, McCormick and Watson, 
Williams and Underwood, are notable examples. All of them began in 
the House. These and others constitute some of the foremost figures in 
American public life. 

In the Senate are ninety-six men, elected by the people from forty- 
eight states, and the safeguards in the Senate in the exercise of its con- 
stitutional authority are security of the American Republic. 
Saved American Nationality 

I do not hesitate to say that the Senate saved American nationality 

60 



I 



in 1919 and 1920, when the executive proposed to surrender it. The Sen- 
ate preser^•ed our independence of action when the executive insisted 
that a foreign council should decide our future place in the activities of 
the world, and call us to war and our destiny. 

It has become quite the fashion among unheeding partisans of Demo- 
cratic faith to cry out against the Senate and the part it plays in the fed- 
eral government. One might as well proclaim the constitution a fraud. 
The Senate is in reality the security of stable, popular government. Many 
measures must of necessity originate in the House of Congress. Its mem- 
bers come fresh from the people every two years. Sometimes the meas- 
ures proposed are the ready reflex of the popular sentiment of the hour. 

Then they go to fuller debate and thorough discussion in the Senate. 
Some men, without experience, cry out against that excess of debate. 
There is not a more helpful thing in all our popular government. When 
I first went to the Senate, I grew impatient at the length of debate my- 
self. It is granted that much is said in the Upper House that is not ex- 
ceedingly important and not always timely. But it is very evident to one 
who has watched the activities of the Senate as a participant that every 
unworthy measure is sure to be lost in the freedom of Senate debate and 
any worthy measure is certain to come to final consideration in ample 
season, and is sure to be perfected in the fullness of discussion. 
An Amusing Incident 

I remember a ^■ery amusing incident which happened in the Senate 
debates relating to the adoption of a modified cloture rule. It ought to 
be said, in passing, that the proposition for cloture came from an execu- 
tive who looked upon the proceedings of the Senate with more or less 
contempt. In the progress of the debate, a very eminent senator, who 
argued \ery earnestly that an hour was ample time for the intelligent and 
ample discussion of any pending question, required an hour and a half of 
his time to utter all that he had to say on that particular subject. 

The practices of the Senate are not so ancient or so firmly fixed that 
they do not yield to reform, and the Senate is not insensible to intelligent 
public opinion nor unheeding of a righteous public demand. Whenever 
the question is urgent, the Senate responds to a public call with a swift- 
ness little less than a prompt individual decision. It has never failed the 
country in an hour of great importance, but it has saved to the country 
the inheritance for which heroes perished and for which the supreme sac- 
rifices of the Republic were made. 

A Senate Filibuster 

I can recall one excessive debate in the Senate, probably correctly 
called a filibuster, which took place at the closing period of Congress in 
1919. The appropriation bills were kept from passage by the debate of 

61 



the Senate. Frankly I did not approve at the time, but the failure of 
these appropriation bills to pass led to a resubmission of them at the 
special session of Congress, which was called soon thereafter, and my 
recollection is that the new Republican Senate was able to reduce these 
appropriations almost a billion dollars. Here is one instance, at least, 
where debate was a money-saving operation to the people of the United 
States of America. Literally, it was only a delay of action under Demo- 
ratic control until the bills could be considered under a Republican 
understanding of the needs of the country. We need more of that same 
reduction of expenditures in the years which are immediately before us. 
And we mean to have it. 

Needed to Save America 

In cartoon, in solemn editorial, in many utterances on the platform, 
it has been suggested that in case of a Republican victory the incoming 
President proposes to permit the Senate to have some say in determining 
the policy of government. I gladly proclaim all these suggestions to be 
literally correct. I rejoice that the United States Senate is functioning 
again. We need it to save America. It submerged itself for the period of 
the war and surrendered to the executive because we wanted to marshal 
all of our forces and resources under one supreme authority, but we are 
at peace today, actual peace, though not formally proclaimed, and we 
need the restorations of constitutional government quite as much as we 
need the restoration of the stable ways of peace. If a Republican adminis- 
tration is chosen next November, you can be very certain that the Senate, 
theoretically, if not actually, composed of ninety-six leading men of the 
Republic, will have something to say about the foreign relations as the 
constitution contemplates. 

Exceptional Wisdom 

There was exceptional wisdom in the fathers providing that the Sen- 
ate must sanction by a two-thirds vote every foreign covenant. The 
early patriots were not content that a mere majority control, which 
might be wholly partisan, should give to the executive the right to enter 
into treaties with foreign nations. A mere majority might surrender to 
the personality or to the partisan aims of an executive who happened to 
be in political accord, but there could be no possibility of a hasty decision 
when two-thirds of the Senate must give its consent. The league cov- 
enant was written and negotiated in the mistaken belief that a majority 
could not even amend. 

In the two-thirds vote to ratify was the supreme wisdom of the found- 
ers, because in all the previous history of the world the conflicts between 
nations usually had their beginning in the ambition of the ruling head 
of government. 

62 



Still, another safeguard was provided in making it necessary for all 
appropriations to originate in the Lower House of Congress. The Senate 
and the Executive may make a covenant with a foreign nation, and many 
a compact of that sort involves financial expenditure. Thus the fulfilment 
is finally dependent upon the willingness of the House to agree to the 
necessary appropriation. I do not know that there is an instance in our 
history where the House has declined to appropriate money to make 
good a contract between our own and any foreign government, but, liter- 
ally and constitutionally, the House has the power to defeat the fulfil- 
ment of any compact which involves any expenditure. There has been 
no failure on the part of the House, because that body joins the Senate in 
the abiding policy of committing this Republic to fidelity of contract. If 
we failed to keep any covenant we should be held in contempt through- 
out the world. 

May Well be Applied 

This thought may well be applied to the proposal that this Republic 
can subscribe to Article 10 and enter into the League of Nations and sub- 
mit to the rule of a council of foreign powers, on the theory that only 
congress can make the declaration of war. It is true that only Congress 
can make the declaration, just as it is true that only Congress can make 
an appropriation of money to carry out a covenant with a foreign power, 
but if this nation agrees to accept the decision of a foreign council, then 
we should be guilty of a bad faith, utterly unbecoming of this republic, 
if Congress did not keep the compact and provide for the welfare which 
the foreign council has ordered. I would think it much better to hold 
aloof from international relationship than stamp that relationship with 
perfidy from the very beginning. If the obligation is one of contract we 
will keep it, if it is a moral obligation, we must keep it. 

For Constitutional Government 

However, I did not mean to deal with this problem in such remarks 
as I have thought becoming to this occasion. 

I do want America to understand that a Republican administration 
stands unalterably, avowedly and proudly for constitutional government 
with the recognized and sustained powers of the legislative and judicial 
branches of the government, as well as that of the executive. 

I want members of the House to feel themselves a part of a Republi- 
can administration, seeking to serve the interests of all the people of our 
common country. I want members of the Senate to understand, and the 
public to know, that the Senate has its functions to perform in making 
good the plight of faith in the Republican platform, and the fulfillment 
of promises to the American people. I had rather have the counsel of the 
Senate than all the political bosses in any party, in America. Under the 

63 



constitution, the Senate must advise and consent to all important ap- 
pointments made by the Executive. I do not think we have lived up to 
the constitution in this matter in recent years. 

The tendency has been for the Executive to arrogate to himself all 
the powers of government. Maybe it is old-fashioned to get back to the 
constitution, but I can well believe it will be a wholesome change from 
the conditions we are experiencing at the present time. 

Party Sponsorship 
I have said something heretofore about party sponsorship in govern- 
ment I do not think any intelligent person can have misconstrued my 
meaning. When I speak of party sponsorship, I mean that sponsorship 
which belongs to a political party for the determination of policies and 
the fixing of program for the highest service to the American people. 1 
want to have done with personal government in this country. I want to 
put an end to autocracy, which has been reared in the name of democracy. 
I want a government of laws rather than of men. 

I want representative popular government in fact, not merely m 
name I want an end to dictation in America and the resumption of the 
rule of dependable public opinion, uttered through the representatives 
of the people chosen for that explicit purpose. There has been a fevered 
tendency of humanity in recent years to completely alter everything 
which has gone before. We have that new cult in American politics which 
proclaims everything that is, is bad, and suggests that everything that 
is to be, will be divine. 

Paris or Mob Mentality 
We had a period of popular resentment of the existence of our courts, 
and for a time there was the suggestion that we should submit their de- 
cisions to popular sanction, else they should not abide. There isn t very 
much choice between venomous assault on the integrity of the courts and 
the momentary clamor about eliminating the Senate from the responsi- 
bility in federal government. 

I do not know whether the idea is one imported from the peace council 
at Paris, or whether it is a reflex of the mob mentality which has broken 
out in revolution in various places in Europe. Our business is to hold 
America stable. Our task is to preserve popular, representative, consti- 
tutional government in America. The particular task of the Kepubhcan 
party is to appeal to the confidence of the people of this Republic and to 
assure them that if we are returned to power we mean to restore the exer- 
cise of the fullness of rights to the various branches of the government, 
and not make America the pawn of an indiv idual or the plaything ot a 
party, or the plunder of the profiteers, who were developed under the 
rule of that party which now inveighs most loudly against them. 

64 



I 



Not Much of a Task 

It is not very difficult to construe the aspirations and ambitions of 
America. It is not very hard to know what is in the thoughts of the great 
mass of Americans who constitute the resistless undercurrent of forward 
American life. Americans want the preservations of their liberties. They 
want the assurance of tranquility and security. They want to dwell in 
peace at home and know only friendly relations with all oi* neighbors 
throughout the world. They want a fair chance for every man and wo- 
man in this republic, and they want that fair chance amid conditions 
which promise that men may achieve and be rewarded as they merit it. 
No one worth while in America wants the adoption of anything approx- 
imating the rule of ruin in Russia, or the impractical things of the well- 
meaning dreamer at home. 

They want our progress so influenced, not hindered, by government, 
that the good fortunes attending our human activities may be reasonably 
fairly distributed, and they want to feel that the various employments 
in American life shall be righteously rewarded. 

True Government 

There can be no permanent good fortune if the rewards of toil are be- 
stowed upon particular groups. There can be no assurance of stability 
if one great group in American life preys upon another. Our thought is to 
work out such just laws and see to their proper enforcement that govern- 
ment will not be influenced by any element in American life made influ- 
ential through its physical might, or strength of possessions, but that 
representative government shall ever be righteous and just and give of 
its concern to the good fortunes of all the American people. 

We have wrought the miracle of American development and the won- 
der of American progress through this inherited government of ours, 
which seems to surpass any other creation of men since the world began. 
Since the record of human progress and the story of American accom- 
phshment give proof that ours is the best government under the sun, I 
rejoice that the Republican Party means to preserve it and hold fast to 
its separate branches, and pledges the American people their co-ordinated 
functioning for the highest good to the millions of this Republic. 



65 



A SPEECH BY SENATOR WARREN G. HARDING 

TO DELEGATION OF HARDIN COUNTY, 

OHIO, SOLDIERS OF '61.'65, MARION, OHIO 

AUGUST, 19, 1920 

You have paid me a very exceptional compliment, and it is a joy for 
me to come over here to greet you. I don't think it has fallen to the lot 
of any man in the capacity of a candidate to have a greater tribute paid 
to him than the call of such a body of veterans of the Civil War. When I 
stop to think of the long period that has passed since you went to the front 
in 1861 it brings to me a new realization of what you did, first in your 
service to country in preserving nationality and second in laying down 
your arms and returning to citizenship, giving to the country the leaven 
of patriotism. 

From my earliest recollections I have a distinct remembrance of 
Civil War soldiers in their activities of citizenship and their marked in- 
fluence in political progress. If the millions of sons who went forth in the 
defense of our national rights in the World War can turn to a new birth 
of patriotism as you did, that will compensate us for all our part in the 
great world struggle. The man who goes forth to offer all on the altars of 
country returns a better patriot. We need a new birth of patriotism in 
our country. 

You didn't enter the war to free the slave, although that was a 
becoming ideal. You didn't go to war because you hated any group in the 
South or to establish any new conception of justice. But you entered the 
conflict because you found the Union was threatened; you went to save 
the Union and nationality. 

There have been a variety of opinions as to why your grandsons went 
to war. Your sons went to war with Spain for humanity. Some have 
said that your grandsons went to war for democracy and some that they 
went forth to insure that there would be no wars in the future. If we went 
to war for democracy, shouldn't we have gone in when it first started? 
And if we went to war to insure that there would be no more wars, 
shouldn't we have gone in before so many millions had been sacrificed? 

The simple truth is that your grandsons went to war when Congress 
made the declaration because our nationality and rights had been 
threatened. Then it was possible to call the sons of America to battle. 

That doesn't mean that when the war is over we should surrender 
what we went in to maintain. If I am elected president of the United 
States and it is within my power, there will never be a surrender of that 
which you have handed down to the generation of today. 

66 



A SPEECH BY SENATOR WARREN G. HARDING 

TO HARDING-COOLIDGE THEATRICAL 

LEAGUE, MARION OHIO, AUGUST 

24, 1920 

Ladies and Gentlemen : — I am conscious that I am greeting a group 
which is representative of a very much more important element in our 
American life than is generally recognized. Whether one contemplates 
the present-day stage in deference to its part in art or its vast oppor- 
tunities for educational work or its commercial importance, it is really 
a very significant factor in the activities, progress and attainment of 
our common country. 

I presume many of you had rather be estimated from the purely 
professional side as devotees of a very great and appealing art. It is very 
easy, on the other hand, for the practical mind to be impressed by the 
fact that the United States of America expends approximately one billion 
dollars per year for its amusement on the stage. Perhaps nothing more 
significantly reflects the changed condition of living or the ability of our 
people to indulge in those things which are counted a necessary part of 
the fuller modern life. 

There is another phase, however, which is even more appealing to 
me. I do not in any way minimize my high regard for the great art in- 
volved in the splendid work of the spoken drama or the musical stage, 
but the coming of the silent drama has revealed to us an agency for 
education which no human being could have reasonably conceived a 
quarter of a century ago. We have no single avenue for the dissemina- 
tion of information equal to that of the moving picture. I do not know 
that anyone now has an approximate measure of the possibilities which 
may come. Pictures are very convincing things. I confess that sometimes 
the camera fools us more or less, but, as a general proposition, it is a very 
dependable agency of the truth, and it has the facility for conveying es- 
sential educational truths to the remotest parts of the world. 

Nothing is more remarkable than the enlarged enjoyment of the drama 
through picture distribution. It is only a few years ago that the rural 
community saw very little of the drama and much of what it saw was not 
to be taken as a very creditable example of the best in dramatic art. 
Most of you have a very strong aversion to what is properly known as 
barnstorming, and really worth-while stage entertainment was a very 
rare thing in the rural communities. Many of us had examples of home 
production in which we yielded to a very natural inclination to act some 

67 



part. This manifestation is one which we developed rather unconscious- 
ly from the earliest days in the public schools. The recitation or decla- 
mation, so frequently employed by schooling youths and encouraged in 
every home, is only one of the early tendencies of the dramatic art. 

I will not venture to recall my recollections of the amateur stage and 
the home production, or any part I had therein, but I do recall that out 
of the atmosphere of the small town stage has come many a star to il- 
lumine the theatrical world. It has seemed to me that there are two ele- 
mental essentials to the inauguration of a dramatic career, one is native 
talent and the other is opportunity for its development. With these, of 
course, must be ambition and determination, because there is no emi- 
nence attained in human life without these. It is befitting to recall that 
no actor or actress ever wrought an abiding triumph on any stage with- 
out knowing the soul of the character enacted, and we Americans, to 
enact our part in the drama of world civilization, must know the soul 
of America, and play the part of real Americans. 

If it will not seem out of place, I want to convey one message to your 
associates in the various activities of the stage world, I think we have 
been making noble progress in the attainment of high quality and the eleva- 
tion of standards. I would like the American stage to be like American 
citizenship, the best in all the world. I think the inspiration for success 
lies in ever lifting the standards higher and higher. It is extremely neces- 
sary to continue to elevate the st,andards of the silent drama, because we 
send the picture stage to all the people of the United States and it is 
of common concern that its influence must be the very best. I do not 
think a people can be fortunate with various standards of censorship. I 
presume censorship is very essential, but I do not think we require one 
standard for one locality and another standard for another. We must 
ever be on guard against debasement for momentary gain, on the one 
hand, and against narrow exaction which destroys the artistic merit of a 
production and the real lesson intended, on the other. However, there is 
nothing so essential to the highest art that it need be offensive to becom- 
ing public morals. 

Without venturing to quote the very familiar reference to all the 
world as a stage, I have been thinking lately that there is a great like- 
ness between political life under popular government and many of our 
most successful productions on the stage. Some of the most impressive 
plays I have ever witnessed have been those where all the interest is not 
riveted in the lead. For example, in the production of Julius Caesar, 
which attracted the attention of much of the foremost talent of the stage 
one great actor would choose to portray the character of Cassius, an- 
other may have elected to play the part of Brutus, still another thought 

68 



to assume the role of Caesar himself. The work of the lead was not 
transcendent, but the effectiveness of the play was dependent on the per- 
fection with which every character was presented. To my mind it is the 
ideal spoken production where each one plays his part with soul and en- 
thusiasm, no matter how insignificant the part may be, so that out of the 
grouped endeavor comes the perfect offering. 

There is an element in every production quite as essential in the 
modern production as the acting caste, which must work with spirit and 
devotion and which the public never sees. I refer to the forces behind 
the scenes, who dress the picture for either spoken or silent drama. I do 
not assume to mention all elements essential to the modern stage, but 
I do want to remind the public that on the stage, as in life, are ever the 
faithful and the tireless without whom we could not accomplish, but who 
themselves rarely appear on the stage. Their applause must come in the 
soul of their work and the consciousness of things well done. 

There are many plays especially written for notable stars and their 
presentation has depended on the work of one portraying genius. There 
is, of course, a fascination in the one-lead drama, but it makes the 
spectator very much dependent upon one individuality, and if the star 
should be incapacitated for any reason, there is inevitable disappoint- 
ment. I think it is a very practical thing to suggest that our American 
popular government ought not to be a one-lead or a one-star drama of 
modern civilization. I want to commend the policy of each and every 
one having his part to play, and we all must play with enthusiasm in 
order to perfect the whole production. We have been drifting lately 
under one-lead activities and I am sure the American people are going to 
welcome a change of the bill. For the supreme offering, we need the all- 
star cast, presenting America to all the world. 

Running over in my mind some of my recollections of the stage, I 
recall two plays — the prod*uction of which left an impress that I shall 
never forget, especially in their bearing on the present state of human 
affairs. In one, Forbes Robertson played the leading role — "The Passing 
of the Third Floor Back." The Stranger in the play urged upon a dis- 
cordant, suspicious boarding-house family, the gospel of simplicity and 
honesty and understanding. With a rare sympathy and great patience, 
and with wholesome good sense and a fine example in himself, he trans- 
formed the household and planted happiness where discord had flour- 
ished, and rended hypocrisy, and put an end to cheating, and drove 
snobbery out, and set the flowers of fellowship abloom. We need the 
lesson this Stranger taught, in our American lives and throughout the 
world. His was no radical teaching, his was not a highly dramatic or 
sensational example, there really was not a very striking punch in a thing 

69 



that he said, but the Stranger was soothing and helpful and encouraging 
and uplifting, and he left sunshine where the shadows of gloom had 
darkened, and he did it all through sympathy and understanding. He 
uncovered reality and put pretense aside. 

The other play was one of Mansfield's superb productions — "Charles 
V," if my memory is correct. I particularly recall a camp scene on the 
night before a crucial battle, and as I recall it now, the King put aside his 
regal garb, and clad as a simple soldier went among his armed forces to 
learn their feelings, their confidence, and their fears, and ascertained 
on terms of equality and intimacy, what a monarch might never have 
learned in any other way. And he found that the heart of his army was 
right. He asked concerning the morrow and he found the confidence of 
the rank and file to be the assurance of a King, and together they fought 
in triumph the next day. 

There is no kingship in this Republic, but thoughtful Americans are 
wondering about the morrow. Is our civilization secure? It is well to 
know what is in the hearts of men and women, who are gathered before 
the camp-fires of human progress. There is a memory of yesterday, the 
horizon of today, and the new hope of tomorrow. Every normal human 
being wishes for a better morrow than today. Every parent in America 
wishes for his son or daughter all that he inherited, and more. That 
is why humanity is ever an advancing procession. 

But no sane man ever puts aside an assurance of experience for the 
promise of more experiment. The world can not be stabilized on dreams, 
but can be steadied by evident truths. It is perfectly normal humanity 
which delights in a new sensation. One can only pity a people which be- 
comes blase. It is better to be simple than surfeited. The new thrill is 
sought on the stage and is sought everywhere in human life. Some of 
our people lately have been wishing to become "citizens of the world." 
Not so long since I met a fine elderly daughter of Virginia, who would 
have been justified in boasting her origin in the Old Dominion and utter- 
ing her American pride, but I was shocked to hear her say, "I am no 
longer an American, I am a citizen of the world." Frankly, I am not so 
universal, I rejoice to be an American and love the name, the land, the 
people and the flag. 



70 



A SPEECH BY SENATOR WARREN G. HARDING 

TO DELEGATION FROM WYANDOTTE CO., 

OHIO, MARION, OHIO, AUGUST 25, 1920 

Mr. Carey and Wyandot County Friends: — Of the many greetings 
which I have received at this place none has brought me more genuine 
pleasure than yours. You are my near neighbors, and many of you are 
personally known to me. In the course of a long residence here in Marion 
I have had close associations with Wyandot County and its people, so 
that I regard your call on me today in the light of friendship and neigh- 
borliness more than political. The words of your chairman suggest this 
feeling when he says that this delegation is composed of Republicans and 
Democrats. 

It is significant that the women are here as a part of your numbers. 
It is likewise becoming. Clothed as they soon are to be with the right 
of suffrage, it is a fine example of their appreciation of the responsi- 
bility of this added duty of citizenship that they observe this first 
opportunity to show their interest and concern in matters political. 
Whatever differences there may have been over the granting of the right 
of suffrage to the women, there can be no question as to their fitness, 
their capacity, their patriotism and their earnestness. Whenever the 
American women determine upon a course they have universally made a 
complete success. They will regard their obligation with seriousness and 
always with a concern for their country's welfare. 

No Assurance Needed 

I needed not your assurance, Mr. Carey, that the good people of 
Wyandot County, as represented here, love their country, or that they 
cherish the great principles of Americanism which they are ready 
to defend. The history of Wyandot county which depicts the bitter 
struggles and the heroic sacrifices of the founders of your county is the 
fullest guarantee of their sturdy patriotism. Love of country and devo- 
tion to the highest principles of liberty are in the necessary heritage 
of the descendants of a sturdy and courageous people. W^hile all of 
our country has had a somewhat similar history in the conversion of the 
forest and the glades from wilderness to civilization, your county is some- 
what distinguished apart from many by the tragedies which marked the 
struggle for supremacy, culminating in the awful fate of my distant kins- 
man, Colonel Crawford, at the stake. 

Beget Love of Country 

Happily, those days are long gone by and peaceful and fruitful fields 
now smile in promise of the abundant harvests to come. The beautiful 
land that once knew rapine is the abode of a people whose civilization 

71 



is of the highest order. Such a history, I repeat, and such surroundings 
must of necessity beget a people imbued with love of country and a strong 
devotion to its institutions. 

Charles Dickens, who has delighted millions dead, living and to be 
would not recognize in your charming county seat the Indian village 
which he visited in 1842, nor the "ghostly room, with a quantity of 
withered branches on the hearth, and two doors without any fastenings, 
opposite to each other, both opening on the black night and wild country 
and so contrived that one of them always blew the other open," where 
he and his good wife spent the night. 

By passing from the thoughts of those far-off days, we must come to 
a consideration of the present-day problems, the interest in which has 
fixed your attention and brought you here today. 

We Have Peace — Europe War 

Our country is suffering today in common with much of the world as 
a result of the great war. We have this difference to distinguish us from 
Europe: We have actual peace, though not formally declared, while 
much of Europe is engaged in war, directly or indirectly. The European 
states have made their covenant, but war continues. We have entered 
into no covenant, and we have actual peace, but we have also the after- 
math of the war in high cost of living, in disturbed social conditions, and 
in uncertainty in our industrial and financial affairs. 

No Provision Made 

This condition arises largely from the fact that the administration 
made no provision for a return to a peace basis. The government at Wash- 
ington is still functioning very largely under special wartime legislation. 
Those laws, the enactment of which we are not disposed to question 
because they were the generous act of Congress in obedience to a call 
of patriotism, are not now necessary. In fact, their continuance upon the 
statute books and especially their administration as in time of national 
peril, are a hindrance and a source of positive mischief to the country. 
Not only is the effect mischievous, but their organized machinery is a 
source of great and unnecessary expense to the people of this country. 
We are already burdened to the breaking point with public dues exacted 
for all manner of purposes. The annual interest for all charges on our 
public debt is about equal to our normal revenue in the pre-war days. 
The unnecessary expenditure due to big organizations under these war- 
time agencies is not only an expense for which there is no equivalent, 
but a grievous burden upon a people who are struggling to meet other 
obligations imposed upon them from every direction. 
To Reduce Living Cost 

We need to reduce our cost of government as one means toward 

72 



reducing the cost of living. But that is not the only remedy. It may 
be difficult to indicate any particular remedy to achieve this much de- 
sired result, but certainly anything that exacts an unusual money de- 
mand for government is calculated to raise the cost of the necessities of 
life. A costly government is a tax upon the income, earnings or business 
of the individual. What we need is to have the government stop its 
extravagance as an example to individual thrift. Just now we need to 
practice economy in all things. This may sound like mockery to the man 
or woman whose all is consumed in the struggle for existence, but its 
application is to those who are expending unnecessarily, for their waste 
is the cause of want to those who have not enough. 

Back to Millions 

Realizing this fact the Republican Congress during a year of its exist- 
ence cut the government expenditures two and a quarter billion dollars 
from the departmental estimates of the budget prepared by the Demo- 
cratic administration. When the Republican Congress elected in 1918 
came into control of the legislative branch of the government, it did so 
under a pledge to reduce the cost of government and to stop extrava- 
gance and waste. That pledge has been splendidly kept, and this, too, 
in the face of determined and persistent efforts by the party in power in 
the administrative branch of government to maintain its saturnalia of 
extravagance. As a part of the scheme to bring the Republican Party 
into disrepute, the Democrats of the Sixty-Fifth Congress had made 
considerable reductions below the estimate in the preparation of the eight 
supply bills which that Congress had advanced to various stages of legis- 
lative procedure but which they had failed to enact. Notwithstanding 
this fact, the Republicans of the Sixty-Fifth Congress, as a result of 
its careful scrutiny, actually passed the eight supply bills below the 
amount they had carried, as prepared and presented by the former 
Democratic Congress. This saving aggregated nearly a billion dollars. 
Mark you, I said a billion. I want to acclaim the day when we may think 
in millions once more. 

To Relieve Drain 

In addition to this record of saving, the Republican Sixty-Sixth Con- 
gress passed no new public building bills, nor has there been any sort of 
"pork barrel" legislation. The members were brave enough, unselfish 
enough and patriotic enough to forego any improvements, but chose 
to conserve the public revenue that the drain upon our people might be 
relieved. According to the statement of the Democratic Secretary of the 
Treasury, had it not been for these vast savings made from the estimates, 
the government would be facing a deficit of over, $1,400,000,000 instead 
of a surplus of $1,100,000,000 for the coming fiscal year. 

73 



The thanks of the nation are due to the resolute action of the Repub- 
lican Congress in the saving of a billion dollars, so that the fiscal year, 
ended on June 30 last, found us without any increase of debt, floating or 
bonded; in fact, with a small decrease. 

Estimates on War Basis 

Notwithstanding we were assured under the League of Nations that 
we were to be spared from war, the administrations' estimates for national 
defense, including army and navy fortifications, totaled $1,748,358,604.- 
80. The sum was cut in two, despite the unyielding attitude of the 
Secretaries of War and Navy. It is felt that an adequate army and navy 
may be maintained for much less than these appropriations. We believe 
in an adequate navy and for an army of reasonable proportions, but 
we shall insist that these establishments shall be economically admin- 
istered. If the administration had been as solicitous in preparing for 
the inevitable conflict in the first years of the war; if it had exercised even 
ordinary precaution in those trying days, we would have been spared a 
large part of the efforts to prepare for the conflict after the declaration 
of war in April, 1917. No explanation ever may be made to excuse our 
lack of prudent preparation for our inevitable part in the World War, 
because the administration knew we could not escape involvement. 
That neglect was pre-meditated, and the American people who are now 
forced to meet the overwhelming costs of that neglect have a just reason 
to hold the administration to account for the resultant cost which stag- 
gers imagination and imposes burdens that must extend to generations 
yet to come. 

Confidence Justified 

The Republican Party has justified the confidence the country re- 
posed in it when, in October, 1918, the President made his most partisan 
appeal for a Democratic Congress to do his bidding. It was the shocking 
partisanship of a century. The patriotic people of the nation remem- 
bered that, though in the minority in the Sixty-Fifth Congress, the 
Republicans generously supported every request of the President for 
power and authority. They remembered that it was Representative 
Kahn, a Republican, and a minority member of the committee on military 
affairs, who carried through the bill for the enlargement of our army and 
navy when war had been declared and when the Democratic speaker and 
the Democratic chairman of the committee on military affairs refused to 
sponsor that measure. 

The Republican Party never has been found recreant in its patriotic 
duty, and no clearer or more positive proof of its earnestness, its dis- 
interestedness and its patriotic devotion could be given than during 
the days of its minority in the Sixty-Fifth Congress. As the party 

74 



kept faith then, and as it has justified that vote of confidence in 1918, 
so it will continue to do in the days to come, when it will lead this gov- 
ernment once more to its constitutional ways and restore the country to 
a condition of tranquility and security. 

Nation Must Set Example 

Statistics are usually dry and uninteresting, and often bewildering, 
and I shall not try your patience with tables or a great array of figures 
running into incomprehensible billions. In these days, however, it is 
timely and necessary to consider this matter of costs, whether of in- 
dividual or government, and a billion dollars saved in one year to the 
nation is well worth thinking about, considering that our expenditures 
for several years have been mounting upwards at an appalling rate. 
Nations, like individuals, must live within their incomes, else they soon 
come to grief. I promise you that if the Republican Party is entrusted 
with the full governmental control that the work of saving, so well begun 
in Congress, will be persistently continued. The government must 
first set the example of economy, and when it does that, we shall have 
started on the path that leads to lower cost levels for which the people 
are calling. 

While many people have high wages and large incomes there is a 
very considerable portion of our people who have not been able to ex- 
pand their incomes and upon them the great burden of supporting their 
families has been a most grievous burden. We must have thought for 
these patient people. The value of a dollar is the measure of its pur- 
chasing power and it has profited little to receive double pre-war wages, 
if the cost of living has trebled. We have this excessive living cost, and no 
matter how it came about we must meet it. 

That Violated Promise 

The Democratic Party, you will remember, came into power eight 
years ago on the promise to reduce the then high cost of living, though 
it is a blessed memory now. Well, I submit they haven't succeeded 
very well, though in 1914 they came perilously near doing it. How- 
ever, extraordinary conditions have contributed to advance prices, and 
profiteering has added its irritations. Some people have looked to Con- 
gress for remedies to help the situation. Congress carefully considered 
all possible means and applied the one available remedy — the reduction 
of expenditures. It did more, however; it sought to repeal the war-time 
measures that the government might once more function as the framers 
planned. 

Never in our history has government come into such close contact 
with the individual. For many years and until quite recently, except in 
war-time, the individual only paid dues to the federal government when 

75 



he used tobacco or spirits. Now the necessity for raising revenue to meet 
the greatly expanded governmental needs has caused various kinds of 
direct taxes upon individuals and individual enterprises. Various com- 
missions, bureaus and other agencies representing governmental author- 
ity are in constant touch with our personal and business affairs. Once 
government was rather remote — a thing apart, while now it has the 
most intimate relations with us. For this reason all must take a deeper 
and more personal concern in our public affairs. If you are interested in 
a corporation you have a concern in it because it means money — perhaps 
profit to you. 

A Great Business Concern 

The government is a great business concern — a corporation, if you 
please — in which the citizens are the stockholders, and as such, you are 
now getting your quadrennial balance sheet. You know what your 
board of directors — the Congress — has done, and likewise you learn with 
what skill and ability your executives have managed the business affairs; 
whether they have practiced economy, or whether they have pursued 
loose and wasteful methods. Upon the record ought to be made the de- 
cision of the citizens whether to retain their present servants. 

Since we are neighbors, so situated that you made your pilgrimage 
overland today, I think it becoming to say a word concerning the prob- 
lem of good roads. Improved highways are so important to modern 
life and present-day speed and frequency of communication that the 
ox-cart days and corduroy roads are of almost impossible memory. 
Truly, we live in the motor age. Marion and Upper Sandusky are less 
than an hour apart, even when we keep speed limits prescribed by law. 

We were generous in road expenditures before state aid came to our 
encouragement. We are more generous now because of federal aid. 
But that does not justify extravagance, broken fidelity to contract, dis- 
honest expenditure or neglect of upkeep. I want to see maintained 
federal encouragement, but I want more to see maintained roads. It is 
nothing less than a criminal waste of public funds to expend thousands of 
dollars per mile on improved highways, and then allow them to go to 
ruin before half the bonds issued to pay for them have come to maturity. 
It is just as important to maintain as it is to construct. No one would 
tolerate such costly neglect in his private business. It is better to have 
one highway properly maintained than a dozen neglected roads, giving 
convicted evidence of wasted funds, and depreciating motor-car values to 
even greater amounts. If I can have any influence relating to federal aid 
for post roads and main highways, I will ask Congress to stipulate that 
for every dollar expended there must be provision for maintenance and 
guaranteed permanence of the improvement. 

Id 



A Common Interest 

There is another thought which is suggested by our neighborly rela- 
tion and common interest. It doesn't alter our esteem for fellow-Amer- 
icans who are less intimately associated to confess our closer interest 
because of neighborly relationship. I can recall several instances of inti- 
mate co-operation growing out of our very natural common interest. Our 
lands are adjoining, our ambitions are alike. In agriculture, in busi- 
ness exchanges, in guarding public health, in promoting education, in 
seeking every public good, Marion and Wyandot might work together 
effectively and confidently, because of our natural partnership and ad- 
jacent territory. 

Let us make the application in the wider sphere. Nobody has a 
thought of American aloofness to the world, nobody would tolerate the 
thought of American failure to make full contribution to world progress, 
maintained peace and preserved peace. But, frankly, doesn't our sphere 
for the greater and more helpful influence lie in our natural partnership 
on the western continent, in the Pan-American comity, much dreamed 
about, but so little realized? It requires no denationalizing, it demands 
neither assumption nor surrender to promote the natural international 
countries and co-operations of America. Here ought to be mutual trade 
interests, mutual friendship, mutual helpfulness, not in isolation from the 
remainder of the world, but in the frank spirit of contiguous co-operation. 

It would be better to cultivate waiting opportunities in friendly soil 
in the New World than chase a phantom amid the envies and rivalries of 
the Old. 

You spoke, Mr. Carey, about your interest in national self-preser- 
vation. Let me assure you of one thing, in the nation's return to Repub- 
lican control will be one outstanding assurance — there will be no sur- 
render of inspiring nationality for paralyzing internationality. Ours shall 
continue to be the United States of America, free to exercise the American 
conscience, and perform a free people's part for ourselves, for humanity 
and for justice everywhere. 

My Countrymen : — ^Two sons of Wyandot County are here today who 
have made the greatest sacrifice for country which men may offer short 
of life itself. They were blinded under the flag, our Flag, in the Argonne. 
I want to publicly pledge to them and to their comrades who suffered 
impairment for a full part in life the Republic's unfailing and grateful 
consideration. They are the heroes of a nation and civilization preserved. 

And I want to pledge them something more. I know what inspired 
their heroism. I know what made them proud soldiers of the Republic. 
They were fighting for America and American rights. They answered the 
challenge of American rights. They fought to defend American lives, 

n 



American freedom on the seas, and American ideals of international 
relationship. 

If it had been for democracy alone, they would have gone when 
Belgium was invaded. If it had been for humanity alone, they would 
have answered the Lusitania's sinking. Their hearts were stirred, their 
supreme offering was made when America was imperiled. 

They can never see again Old Glory, sublime at home and signalling 
our concept of freedom and justice throughout the world. But I pledge 
to them this afternoon an assurance in their hearts where their blind 
eyes cannot convey — there never shall be a substitute for the Stars and 
Stripes they last beheld. 



A SPEECH BY SENATOR WARREN G. HARDING 
TO MARION COUNTY TEACHERS INSTI- 
TUTE, MARION, OHIO, AUGUST 26, 1920 

This is really a very happy experience. I am very happy to have your 
call. Of course, you think we always say that, but I speak with the ut- 
most sincerity. My mind runs back to something like thirty-eight years 
ago — ^which, of course, none of you ladies can remember — when I was 
myself in attendance as a teacher at a Marion County Institute. I had 
only come from college the year before, and I did what was very much 
the practice of that time — turned to teaching in my abundant fullness 
of knowledge, merely as a temporary occupation. If I only knew as much 
now as I thought I knew then, I would be abundantly capable of fulfilling 
the office for which I have been named. 

It is a very inspiring thing to be a teacher of American youth. In our 
modern life we have shifted some of the responsibility which I think 
should accrue to parenthood over to the teachers in our public schools. 
So you have much to do with making the citizenship in this Republic of 
ours, and you ought to be the best rated profession, the best cared for 
profession in America. I believe that our teachers should be compensated 
as liberally, if not more liberally, than any other profession. I do not try 
to give you the impression that the federal government can do that; but 
we do have a federal Department of Education which has only a relative 
influence on educational work. Some day we may have a much larger and 
more important department of education; but in any event the federal 
government can exert its influence in behalf of a becoming recognition of 
the teaching profession. If the enterprise in which we are now engaged 
succeeds, as I believe it will, you are going to have a friend of the teaching 
profession in a position of influence in the United States. 

78 



I do not believe that all which has been placed on your shoulders 
ought to be taken from the American homes. I will not discuss that at 
length, but I do think teachers ought to know the home a little more in- 
timately, and ought to have the co-operation of the parents and the home. 

May I revert for the moment to an experience when I was teaching? 
I am not sure I was a very good teacher, but I was at least ambitious to 
be a good one. I taught in a country school. If you have never done that 
you don't know the real pleasure of teaching. We had all the branches of 
elementary teaching, up to the heights of algebra, general history. One 
day I put on the blackboard the forms for addressing and closing a letter. 
After explanations, I erased the blackboard form and asked the pupils to 
address me a letter on their slates. One obstinate youth refused, and I 
was obliged to discipline him. He happened to be a son of one of the 
school directors who compensated me for my unusual interest in his boy 
by writing me that I was engaged to teach what was in the text book, 
namely, reading, writing, and arithmetic, and not to go beyond. So he 
declined to sign my pay warrant! That actually happened only about 
thirty-eight years ago in this county ! 

We have made some advances since then. We are advancing in edu- 
cation, as in civilization. Government, to some of you, doubtless seems 
a very simple thing. When I came home on July 5th, I said something to 
the effect that we defend our government because of a reverence that we 
feel by reason of viewing government from afar. That reverence does not 
always remain with us when we view it too closely; and yet it is a very 
wholesome thing for us. Men of sincerity, conscience and patriotism, 
just such men as we are, will succeed reasonably well in public service if 
they give all of conscience and earnestness and patriotism that they pos- 
sess to the service. Our form of government is simple, and I rejoice to 
say it is responding to the aspirations and convictions and ambitions of 
the American people. We have wrought in our Republic one of the mar- 
vels of history, and we have accomplished it because of our independence 
of action and our unfailing devotion to the interests of America. We do 
not need to hold aloof from the world. Those of us who opposed the 
League of Nations covenant that the President brought home, linked 
with the Treaty of Versailles, are just as anxious for America to play its 
proper part in the world as all of you are to play your proper parts in 
your own drama of life. 

No one can hold aloof and be free from influences that necessarily 
affect him; neither individuals, nor states, nor nations. There is no per- 
son who does not possess some share of influence. But I most sincerely 
hold that America can render greatest service to the world by maintain- 
ing first its entire freedom of action, and then maintaining its capacity 

79 



to help the world with its splendid example of popular representative 
government. America has never been remiss in its obligations. 

When America went into the World War, it went in to defend our 
national rights first, and after that to contribute fittingly our full part to 
the maintenance of civilization. 

I want America to go on always, sure of its own conscience, and ready 
to play the part of the greatest, the freest, and most conscientious coun- 
try in the world. 



A SPEECH BY SENATOR WARREN G. HARDING 
AT ATHLETIC TOURNAMENT OF EM- 
PLOYEES OF THE ERIE RAILWAY, 
GALION, OHIO, AUGUST 27, 1920 

Furnishes Opportunity 

This occasion of your athletic tournament furnishes me with an op- 
portunity to present to you and later on, I hope, to as many Americans 
as I can reach, something for all of us to think about deeply. 

From time immemorial the nations and races which have been fit to 
assume leadership in the world were those whose pepole knew how to 
excel in athletic sports and had not forgotten how to play — and how to 
play hard. The great civilizations — those which have left a profound 
effect upon the development of mankind, those which have contributed 
not only to exploration, to the extension of orderly government, to su- 
premacy of arms but even in greater measure to the thought and philso- 
phy of the world have been the nations that developed athletic sports — 
who know how to play. There was Greece, famous for the original Olym- 
pic games; there was Rome, that for centuries kept alive the customs of 
athletic competition in her arenas; there is the United Kingdom, great 
extender of enlightenment to far comers of the earth. Japan, leader in 
the Orient, built her power and her alertness by a tradition of training in 
competitive games such as wrestling and sword play. And, thank God, 
there is America, the stronghold of liberty and the square deal, which 
still can take the honors in the world's competitions in healthy sports. 

I am glad to make a campaign speech about play. I believe that play, 
not mere entertainment, not reading comic strips or "passing the time," 
as some say, but real play, play that gives a man or woman a chance to 
express himself or herself as an individual, is one of the finest assets in our 
national life and one of the best builders of character. 

I believe there are reasons behind the fact that the nations that have 
led the world have fostered athletic games and know how to play, how 

80 



to express their spirit through play, how to develop character through 
competition and how to let off turbulence of the spirit and wasting rest- 
lessness and discontent of mind and poisons of the body through good 
hard play. 

Nothing is more important to America than citizenship; there is more 
assurance of our future in the individual character of our citizens than in 
any proposal I, and all the wise advisers I can gather, can ever put into 
effect in Washington. 

We may as well go back to that sound idea right now. America will 
never rise higher than the merit and worth of her combined individual 
citizens. No nation ever has, none ever will. 

Play for Everybody 

I regard play as having no small part in the building of citizenship. I 
do not mean play for children, I mean play for everybody. The war left 
us nervous and irritable. As time goes on we are going to see that an in- 
dustrial age will inevitably concentrate men in cities. The business ex- 
ecutive, unless he looks out, will die at his desk — not his body perhaps 
but his spirit, and the worker particularly the man behind the machine 
who makes only a few motions over and over again each day will have 
no means of self expression and his spirit will die too. 

There are other reliefs that we must provide for these evils that 
threaten us but the renewal and the preservation of a national custom of 
play and of athletic sports is vital to preserve the fitness of our citizen- 
ship. 

Teaches the Square Deal 

Competition in play teaches the square deal. Competition in play 
teaches the love of the free spirit to excel by one's own merit. A nation 
that has not forgotten how to play, a nation that fosters athletics is a 
nation that is always holding up the high ideal of equal opportunity for 
all. Go back through history and find the nations that did not play and 
had no outdoor sports and you will find the nations of oppressed peoples. 

I am making no appeal in this campaign that I will not be willing to 
have tested by the standards that good competitive sport has set up in 
all ages and among alt fair men. These are the standards of a good citizen- 
ship which is willing to play the game. I want only those behind me who 
are willing to play the game. We have had too much encouragement 
from Washington given to the man who wanted to cut second base, or 
get something for nothing. In the first place, that is not a square deal to 
the rest of us, in the second place there is no way to make a delivery 
that is worth anything. 

I have not said anything yet about the effect that wholesome play 
has, upon national health. We received a rude shock when during the war, 

81 



we came to examine physically that part of our population that is com- 
monly called "the flower of American manhood." We examined in the 
first draft a little over two and a half million men and not counting those 
who were rejected later at mobilization camps, the percentage of rejec- 
tions on account of physical unfitness went right along day after day 
between twenty-five and thirty-three and a third per cent.J 

What It Means 

Do you know what that means? It means that one out of every three 
or four young Americans in their prime — between twenty-one and thirty 
— are unfit. And although I am not a doctor, nor even a professor, I will 
take a chance and say that most of that unfitness came from unwise eat- 
ing, sleeping, bad habits and no play, no exercise, no working out the 
poisons in good sweat, no adjustment of the human frame by stretching 
it in competitive effort. 

Nevertheless in spite of the need for play to bring back American 
bodies to health, so that health may be the sacred heritage of children 
yet unborn, I put, even above the boons of health that play gives, the 
greater treasures that it confers and always will confer upon nations that 
preserve its customs and its morals — the treasures of a sense of fair play 
and of honor given to those who equal opportunity. 

Let me tell you the things which are in my heart about railway em- 
ployment. No matter what any one tells you, no matter what your own 
erroneous impressions are, no thoughtful man in business or private life, 
no earnest man in public life is without a deep concern for the good for- 
tunes of every railway worker, in the shop, in the yards or office, on the 
track or on the trains — every man in the service. We may differ about 
the way to best conditions and the assurances of soul and contentment 
in your work, but we are agreed about the ends at which we aim. 

Boyhood Ambitions 

It was my boyhood ambition to be a locomotive driver. I did not 
know then the hard-working route over which a fireman had to win his 
promotion. 

But youthful days were full of admiration for the great iron steeds, 
and my earliest recollection is of helping to "wood up" on the old At- 
lantic and Great Western and the old Bee Line, before coal-burning 
locomotives came into use, when we boys heaved wood for the mere joy 
of the association, when even there was no ride in prospect as a saving 
compensation. 

Later on, in quite early youth, I made a night trip with Billy Amzon, 
on the Bee Line from Caledonia to Union City, with a quarter as my 
cash resource, and luckily the crew turned at Union City for an immedi- 
ate return, and I rode and rang the bell and sometimes shoveled coal on 

82 



the last freight train over the road before the memorable strike of 1877. 
There were no mechanical stokers in those days, but I learned enough to 
know that I would favor them now. 

One day, when I was a member of the Ohio senate, I happened to tell 
the legislative agent of the locomotive engineers my boyhood ambition, 
and one day he caught me on a train on the Erie between Youngstown 
and Cleveland. He said he meant to call my bluff, that the superintendent 
of motor-power was on the engine and I must go to the cab and do the 
driving. And I went. That was no occasion for a white feather. The 
driver in charge got the train under way — thoroughly under way, I must 
say — then I took the driver's seat. I reached the throttle as I had dreamed 
in boyhood, I showed my capacity to reach the air and wistle, maybe I 
looked the part of a real engineer. 

It's Some Ride 

But I could not certify the rhythm or tranquility of my heart. I 
whistled for crossings and villages, then sensed a down grade, and I 
swear we seemed to be going eighty miles an hour. I turned to get a re- 
assuring look and my heart arose to choke me — the driver and superin- 
tendent and that conspiring Dunnivant had disappeared behind the 
firing end of that raging Mother Hubbard, and I sat alone in my realm 
of early ambition. Of course, they were watching and ready for an emer- 
gency, but I couldn't see them. I saw only villages, seemingly only a few 
rods apart, and road crossings so close that fly screens seemed loose laced, 
and I fancied fatalities and wrecks without number. But I rode on, ap- 
parently alone in my responsibility until the Cleveland yards came with- 
in sight, and I have never been ambitious to be a driver since then. 

But recollection has set me adrift from the thought I wished to offer. 
Heretofore I have said publicly, and I choose to repeat to you, that I be- 
lieve railway workers ought to know the best conditions and be as abun- 
dantly compensated as any wage earners in our modern activities. I am 
not thinking of the rail workers alone. I am thinking of the American 
public. 

Greatest Necessity 

Transportation is the great necessity of modern life. We could not 
have our present-day methods without it. The sustenance of the cities 
and their millions depend upon it, the good fortunes of the agricultural 
world are inseparable therefrom. 

There is nothing else on which we are so reliant. As a publisher I 
want to know that my paper supply is coming promptly, and the printed 
papers speedily carried to those at a distance who read them. When one 
travels he not only wishes to go speedily but he wants to ride safely. Con- 
templating it all, I want to have confidence in the workman who keeps 

83 



the track in order, in the switchman and the tower-man, who keep the 
track clear, in the shop man, who keeps coach and locomotive in order, 
in the train crew, which is immediately and directly responsible for my 
safety — for all in the work of transportation, high or low. It is the sur- 
passing organization of a continent linked in intimate, neighborly as- 
sociation. 

This is why it must be highly rewarded and know the best working 
conditions. I do not speak it to win your favor, I speak it because I think 
America believes as I do. 

Will Hail It Some Day 

I know the Congress feels that way. I may speak of Congress from 
intimate association. I know what the members were thinking. We en- 
acted the Cummins-Esch law. Some of you do not approve, and do not 
approve now. Some of you wished the Plumb plan. Let me look you in 
the face, many of you are friends and neighbors, and let me tell you I 
think the Cummins-Esch act is the expression of the conscience of a Con- 
gress which sought to give highest service to the country in an hour of 
imperiled transportation and the same time assure to the American rail- 
way worker a just consideration never assured him before. Some day, 
maybe not this year, you railway workers will hail that law as the great- 
est forward step in all the history of railway legislation. 

Time does not admit more than a reference to workers' interest. Let 
me ask what the great force of railway workers must wish — wish for 
themselves and are willing to concede to others. Justice, is it not? Justice 
is the underlying foundation of civilization, justice is the inspiration and 
compensation of all endeavor. And the Cummins-Esch act has aimed at 
justice, full, complete and instant justice for the railway wage-earner; 
justice on appeal and hearing, without having to fight or measure 
strength; justice without inconveniencing the American people or hinder- 
ing their transportation, or suspending railway activities. 

I like to think of an era in public service where government means 
not only to guarantee but to bestow prompt justice on the workers in a 
public service, not grudgingly yield it in an hour of apprehension and 
concern. Your service is not that of workmen in a private and competi- 
tive enterprise. 

All Under Control 

No matter what old abuses prevail, no matter what crimes were once 
committed, capital and its issues and compensations are under govern- 
ment control, rates of charges are also under government regulation, and 
I want continuity of service a government guaranty, assured because 
your government and the people's government makes your just treat- 
ment its first concern. You wouldn't wish your government to do more 

84 



because you want just government for all the people, not a government 
yielding to class. Our thought must be more than one of today. Most of 
the railway workers have sons and daughters who will choose other pur- 
suits in life. 

A reassuring contemplation of the morrow sees a government which 
ever thinks of all the people and seeks to add to their common good 
fortune. 



A SPEECH BY SENATOR WARREN G. HARDING 

TO DELEGATION OF INDIANA CITIZENS, 

MARION, OHIO, AUGUST 28, 1920 

The League of Nations 

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Indiana Delegation: I greet you in a 
spirit of rejoicing; not a rejoicing in the narrow personal or partisan 
sense; not in the gratifying prospects of party triumph; not in the con- 
templation of abundance in the harvest fields and ripening corn fields 
and maturing orchards; not in the reassuring approach of stability after 
a period of wiggling and wobbling which magnified our uncertainty — 
though all of these are ample for our wide rejoicing — but I rejoice that 
America is still free and independent and in a position of self-reliance 
and holds to the right of self-determination, which are priceless possess- 
sions in the present turbulence of the world. 

Let us suppose the Senate had ratified the peace treaty containing 
the league covenant as submitted to it by the President in July of last 
year, what would be the situation confronting our common country to- 
day? To my mind there is but one answer. Before this day we would 
have been called upon to fulfil the obligations which we had assumed 
under Article 10 of the league covenant, to preserve the territorial in- 
tegrity of Poland "as against external aggression." 

Sympathy for Poland 

I shall not now attempt to measure the boundless sympathy for the 
just aspirations and restored independence of Poland. Our present con- 
cern is the international situation which Poland has brought to our at- 
tention. 

The council of the League of Nations would have reasoned, and 
reasoned correctly, that the United States could furnish the munitions 
and, if necessary, the men to withstand the hordes advancing from Russia 
far more easily than could the exhausted nations of Europe. Moreover, 
inasmuch as this would be the first test of the scheme of world govern- 
ment which was formulated and demanded by the President, speaking 

85 



for the United States, the fact of a special responsibility, resting upon 
our shoulders, manifestly would have been undeniable. Undoubtedly 
the league council, in "advising upon the means" by which the obliga- 
tions to Poland should be fulfilled, as provided in the covenant, would 
have so held, and probably the conscience of America, certainly the 
opinion of the world, would have sustained that judgment. 
Had Treaty Been Ratified 

The conclusion that our country might now be confronted by such a 
situation, if the Senate had ratified the league covenant, requires no 
stretch of the imagination. None can deny that it is possible. To many 
candid minds, as to my own, such a distressing situation will seem highly 
probable. Let us assume that the ratification had taken place. Let us 
assume, further, that the performance of the allotted task required the 
waging of war upon the Russian people, as, of course, it would, what 
would result? What would of necessity have to result? Nothing necessarily, 
we are glibly informed, since only the Congress can declare war, and the 
Congress might reject the appeal of the Executive. But would the Con- 
gress do that? Could the Congress do that without staining indelibly the 
honor of the nation? 

Answer Is "No" 

I answer "No," and I say it not on my own authority alone. Back of 
my judgment stands the President of the United States. Upon that 
point there is first-hand information. In the course of the discussion 
which took place at the meeting of the President and the senate commit- 
tee on foreign relations, I raised the question by stating a hypothetical 
case precisely analogous to that which I have depicted, and then inquired 
whether we might not rightfully be regarded as a perfidious people if we 
should fail to contribute an armed force, if called upon to do so. The 
President first replied, as I thought somewhat evasively, that we "would 
be our own judges as to whether we were obliged in those circumstances 
to act in that way or not." Pressed further, however, in response to a 
query incorporating the assumption that "the case provided for and 
prescribed had arisen" and that "the extraneous attack did exist pre- 
cisely as it does exist today in Poland," the President admitted speci- 
fically that "we would be untrue if we did not keep our word." 

A Debt of Honor 

Replying further to a question which perhaps I ought not to have 
considered necessary, the President pronounced a moral obligation "of 
course superior to a legal obligation" and of "a greater binding force." 

What then becomes of the argument that Congress, not the President, 
in this instance at any rate, might "keep us out of war?" Technically, 
of course, it could do so. Morally, with equal certainty, it could not do 

86 



so nor would it ever do so. The American people would never permit a 
repudiation of a debt of honor. No Congress would ever dare make this 
Nation appear as a welcher, as it would appear and would be in such an 
event before the eyes of the world. 

Am I not right, my countrymen, in saying that we needed only the 
outbreak of war between Poland and Russia to make us realize at least 
one of the things which, in the words of Secretary Lansing, we would 
have been "let in for," but for the restraining hand of the Senate, and to 
fetch home to us the danger of committing our country in advance to 
causes that we know not of? 

Not Our Purpose 

One can have no quarrel with those who have convinced themselves 
that our underlying purpose in entering the great conflict was to create 
a league of nations. The fact remains, however, that no such intent was 
officially acclaimed, no allusion, nor even a suggestion to that effect ap- 
peared in the joint resolution of Congress which declared the existence 
of a state of war between this Country and Germany. For myself I left 
no room for doubt of the motives which led me to cast my vote in favor 
of that resolution. It so happened that I made the concluding speech 
upon the war resolution, from my place in the Senate, on the night of 
April 4, 1917. These were my own words at that time: 

For American Rights 

" I want it known to the people of my state and to the nation that I 
am voting for war tonight for the maintenance of just American rights, 
which is the first essential to the preservation of the soul of this republic. 

" I vote for this joint resolution to make war, not a war thrust upon 
us, if I choose the language of the resolution, but a war declared in re- 
sponse to affronts ; a war that will at least put a soul into our American 
life; a war not for the cause of the allies of Europe; a war not for France, 
beautiful as the sentiment may be in reviving at least our gratitude to 
the French people; not precisely a war for civilization, worthy and in- 
spiring as that would be ; but a war that speaks for the majesty of a people 
properly governed, who finally are brought to the crucial test where they 
are resolved to get together and wage a conflict for the maintenance of 
their rights and the preservation of the covenant inherited from their 
fathers. 

"We have given to the world the spectacle of a great nation that could 
make war without selfish intent. We unsheathed the sword some eighteen 
years ago for the first time in the history of the world, in the name of 
humanity, and we gave proof to the world at that time of an unselfish 
nation. Now, whether it is the fate, or fortune, or travail of destiny, it 
has come to us to unsheathe the sword again, not alone for humanity's 

87 



sake — though that splendid inspiration will be involved — but to un- 
sheathe the sword against a great power in the maintenance of the rights 
of the Republic, in the maintenance which will give to us a new guaranty 
of nationality. That's the great thing, and I want it known, Mr. President 
and senators, that this is the impelling thought with me for one, when I 
cast my vote." 

For Same Guaranty Today 

It is for that same "guaranty of nationality" that I stand today, and 
shall continue to stand inflexibly, so long as I shall be permitted to live. 
The independence of our great Republic is to me a priceless and sacred 
inheritance. Time was when an American did not hesitate to proclaim 
himself a patriot. To do so now, I am well aware, is sometimes to invite 
the sneers of cynicism. But why should any true American not be free 
to say: " I am a patriot, wholly devoted to my country, which I hold to 
be God's best inspiration to man for higher attainment and the promo- 
tion of the world's best civilization?" Perhaps that sounds trite or com- 
monplace. But can it be too often said or thought as a reminder of our 
plain duty and our abiding source of inspiration? 

Challenges Statement 

But I have a special reason for making this reference today. I chal- 
lenge the statement that the patriotism which holds America first com- 
prehends either narrowness or selfishness, or as implying tacit suspicion 
and jealousy of other peoples. On the contrary, it is the bearer of the 
greatest good will, the kindliest of feeling, the best of fraternity and the 
most helpful of spirits. 

To assert, as some have asserted heedlessly, that those of us who 
honestly believe that America can best serve all mankind as America, 
free and untrammeled, rather than as one in a pitiable minority among 
many states in merged world government, lack consciousness of the right- 
ful demands of humanity, is to utter a gross and unpardonable libel. To 
attribute meanness to those of us who, in the performance of our public 
duty, refused to participate in what we sincerely regarded as a betrayal 
of our own country in the interest of others, is to discredit the intelligence 
and discrimination of the great mass of American people who directly, 
by their votes, put us in our positions of trust. For myself, I yield to no 
man in willingness, aye, in eagerness, to render the greatest conceivable 
assistance to the stricken peoples of Europe. I include all of them and 
speak with a genuinely sympathetic heart, whether it is to mention dev- 
astated France, or sorely-tried Italy, or nobly-struggling Poland, or 
distracted and misguided Russia, or gallant little Belgium, or pitiably 
deceived Austria, or the ruthless invader, Germany, which came 

88 



to the supreme tragedy through a leadership which brought disaster to 
her misguided people. 

It was with that feeling of sympathy and desire to serve, that most 
reluctantly and with grave misgivings, as I announced at the time, I 
voted to accept the league covenant with reservations designed to pre- 
serve our essential liberty of action. The record is made, and under the 
same conditions, confronted by the same alternative, I should vote now 
as I voted then. 

Conditions Have Changed 

But the conditions have changed. Experience has brought enlighten- 
ment. We know now that the league constituted at Versailles is utterly 
impotent as a preventive of wars. It is so obviously impotent that it has 
not even been tried. It could not survive a single test. The original 
league, mistakenly conceived and unreasonably insisted upon, has un- 
doubtedly passed beyond the possibility of restoration. The maturer 
judgment of the world will be that it deserved to pass for the very simple 
reason that, contrary to all of the tendencies developed by the civilizing 
processes of the world, it rested upon the power of might, not of right. 

The assertion is made frequently that through the surrender of our 
nationality, we might have saved the life of the covenant, that is to say 
that, although twenty-eight nations could not make it function, one 
added to the twenty-eight would have achieved a glowing success, pro- 
vided, always, that the one were America. 

Great Tribute to America 

This pays to America the tribute of exceptional influence, but I sug- 
gest that if the world is dependent upon our action to bring about the 
supreme realization, then we ought to have the say about our own free- 
dom in participating therein. But let us consider what is meant by this 
reliance upon America. What can it signify if not that it is to the United 
States, and to the United States alone, that the other twenty-eight na- 
tions look for the bone and sinew, the money, the munitions and the men 
to sustain the entire organization, not as an agency of peace, but as an 
armed force? 

A Telling Admission 

A few days ago a delegation of an organization, which calls itself a 
Society for the Prevention of War, appealed to the premier of Great Brit- 
ain to unite and use the powers of the world in defense of Poland, Ar- 
menia and the Dardanelles. The British premier replied, according to 
his remarks quoted by the newspapers, to the effect that, while the for- 
mation of "an international army" would be "an ideal solution," it could 
not be accomplished because the European nations could not furnish the 
troops, and the United States had "withdrawn from co-operation," — 

89 



a polite and diplomatic phrase and more exactly meaning, of course, that 
the Senate of the United States had not completed the partial obligation 
assumed by the President to do that very thing, that is, to "furnish the 
troops." Could a clearer indication of what would have been expected of 
this country as a member of the league be desired? Hardly. Some, too, 
think, or say they think, that this extraordinary service should be ren- 
dered. I do not agree with them, but, assuming that they are right, I 
venture to note that nothing stands in the way of performance. The 
President has only to call upon Congress to declare war, and to confer 
upon him specific authority to raise armies for the protection to the 
powers, which though recently associated with, are still foreign to our 
own Republic. 

Not to be Anticipated 

It is reasonably safe to assume, however, that the President will not 
pursue this course. Fortunately, he is under no "compelling moral obli- 
gation " under the league to do so. His recent unhappy experience, more- 
over, in asking Congress to send American boys to police Armenia would 
hardly encourage repetition of a request already courteously but quite 
firmly declined by the Congress. What then, in like circumstances, would 
be the answer of the British premier himself? One does not have far to 
seek this available advice. In his own words, addressing a meeting of the 
Coalition Liberals on August 12 last, according to the press reports, he 
said: 

"When the terrible question of peace or war has to be decided, our 
first duty as a government is to the people who trust us not to commit 
their treasure to any unjustifiable adventure. Nothing but the most im- 
perative call of national honor, national safety and national freedom can 
justify war. Before this country is committed to it, even in the most 
limited form, we must be satisfied that these are in peril." 

I quote these telling words, my countrymen, with the utmost satis- 
faction, because with one amendment they express to a nicety my own 
position. I take for granted that the prime minister meant to include in 
"treasure" the greatest treasure of all, but, for myself, I should leave 
nothing to be inferred. Foremost and above all else to be safeguarded by 
those of us who hold the trust of the people, it goes without saying, but 
can not be too often repeated, is the manhood of the nation. American 
boys are not born to be made the sacrifices of war except when it is clearly 
and unmistakably in defense of their country. 

Will Not Misuse Power 

Now, it may appear to you that I have been speaking chiefly in the 
negative. I make the admission. What is more, I might continue to do 
so almost indefinitely without disadvantage to our cause. So many things 

90 



have been done by the present expiring administration that no power on 
earth could induce me to do, that I can not even attempt to recount them. 
I may remark casually, however, that if I should be, as I fully expect to 
be, elected President of this just and honorable|Republic, I will not em- 
power an assistant secretary of the navy to draft a constitution for help- 
less neighbors in the West Indies and jam it down their throats at the 
point of bayonets borne by United States marines. We have a higher 
service for our gallant marines than that. Nor will I misuse the power 
of the Executive to cover with a veil of secrecy repeated acts of unwar- 
ranted interference in domestic affairs of the little republics of the western 
hemisphere, such as in the past few years have not only made enemies of 
those who should be our friends, but have rightfully discredited our 
country as their trusted neighbor. 

Will Submit to No Wrong 

On the other hand, I will not or shall not, as you prefer, submit to 
any wrong against any American citizen, with respect to either his life 
or his property, by any government. This statement is made in all sol- 
emnity with enmity for none and freindship for all. If it particularly 
applies to Mexico, the application has been directed by the robbery and 
murder of hunderds of our own people in that unhappy country, who 
were lawfully there and were entitled to protection. One must admit 
that these outrages upon Americans are largely the consequences of the 
wiggling and wobbling, the supine waiting of our own government, though 
the admission neither helps the hurt, nor gives the hope of security for 
the future while the present administration remains in power, or when 
one in "complete accord" succeeds it. 

This admonition is not directed exclusively toward our next-door 
neighbor to whom we would gladly hold forth a helping hand, and whom 
primarily, certainly in preference to far-off peoples in Europe, Asia and 
Africa, it is our manifest duty to serve with a whole heart and generous 
tolerance. It is intended for a plain notice to every government on the 
face of the earth that the entire resources of this Nation are pledged to 
maintain the sacredness of American lives and the just protection of 
American properties. This is not bombast, my countrymen, it is a note 
of assurance which is the right of American citizenship. You know that 
I am not given to exaggeration or undue emphasis. It is a simple fact, 
or rather, speaking more precisely, it is going to be the fact if you elect 
me President. 

Line of Demarcation Plain 

The line of demarcation between our attitude and that of our political 
opponents is perfectly plain. The President has made his position clear 
by his acts no less than by his words. Twice there came to him an oppor- 

91 



tunity to obtain ratification at the hands of the Senate and twice he put 
the opportunity aside, because he would not accept reservations designed 
solely to safeguard American rights. He still holds Article 10 to be the 
heart of the covenant. So does the Democratic platform. So does the 
Democratic nominee. To assume that the nominee would accept the 
reservations rejected by the President and denounced by the party plat- 
form is to impugn his integrity. To insinuate, as those who in proclaim- 
ing themselves for the Democratic candidate and "the league with reser- 
vations " do insinuate, that he would pursue such a course in seeking rati- 
fication is not to pay him a compliment, but rather to challenge his sin- 
cerity. 

For myself, I do not question for a moment the truth of what the 
Democratic nominee says on this subject. He has flatly said he is "in 
favor of going in" on the basis announced by the President. I am not. 
That is the whole difference between us, but it is a most vital one, be- 
cause it involves the disparity between a world court of justice supple- 
jnented by a world association for conference, on the one hand, and the 
council of the league, on the other. 

The Difference 

The difference between a court of international justice and the council 
created by the league covenant is simple but profound. 

The one is a judicial tribunal to be governed by fixed and definite 
principles of law administered without passion or prejudice. The other 
is an association of diplomats and politicians, whose determinations are 
sure to be influenced by considerations of expediency and national sel- 
fishness. The difference is one with which Americans are familiar, the 
old and fundamental difference between a government of laws and a 
government of men. 

I do not mean to say, nor do I mean to permit any such construction, 
that I would decline to co-operate with other nations in an honest en- 
deavor to prevent wars. Nobody living would take that position. The 
only question is one of method or of practicability within the bounds pre- 
scribed by fundamental principles. 

There are distinctly two types of international relationship. One is an 
offensive and defensive alliance of great powers, like that created at Ver- 
sailles, to impose their will upon the helpless peoples of the world. Frank- 
ly, I am opposed to such a scheme as that, and I speak knowingly when 
I say that the associated powers, with whom we fought the war, were 
reluctant to accept such a proposition. 

I am opposed to the very thought of our Republic becoming a party 
to so great an outrage upon other peoples, who have as good a right to 
seek their political freedom as we had in 1776 and have the same right 

92 



to developing eminence under the inspiration of nationality as we held 
for ourselves. 

The Other Type 

The other type is a society of free nations, or an association of free 
nations, or a league of free nations, animated by considerations of right 
and justice, instead of might and self-interest, and not merely proclaimed 
an agency in pursuit of peace, but so organized and so participated in as 
to make the actual attainment of peace a reasonable possibility. Such an 
association I favor with all my heart, and I would make no fine distinc- 
tion as to whom credit is due. One need not care what it is called. Let it 
be an association, a society, or a league, or what not, our concern is solely v^ 
with the substance, not the form thereof. 

This is proposing no new thing. This country is already a member of 
such a society — The Hague tribunal, which, unlike the league of Ver- 
sailles, is still functioning, and within a few weeks will resume its commit- 
tee sessions under the chairmanship of an American representative. 
Cause of Failure Apparent 

In that body we have the framework of a really effective instrumen- 
tality of enduring peace. The fact that the tribunal did not prevent the 
Great War is, of course, manifest, but the cause of the failure is no less 
apparent. Germany, already secretly determined upon a ruthless in- 
vasion, was able to prevent the adoption of measures which might have 
proved effectual. The condition now is wholly different. Not only Ger- 
many, but the entire world, has profited to the extent of an awful object 
lesson, the impressions of which can not be erased from the human mind 
for generations to come. The horrors of war and the eagerness for peace 
have become universal. What once seemed at The Hague to be a mere 
academic discussion has become a positive, outstanding need of facing 
terrifying actualities. This makes vastly easier the task of so strengthen- 
ing The Hague tribunal as to render its just decrees either acceptable or 
enforceable. It is not uncommon for the advocates of the league of Ver- 
sailles to contrast unfavorably The Hague tribunal upon the ground that 
the tribunal "lacks teeth." 

Let's Install the Teeth 

Very well, then, let's put teeth into it. If, in the failed league of Ver- 
sailles, there can be found machinery which the tribunal can use properly 
and advantageously, by all means let it be appropriated. I would even 
go further. I would take and combine all that is good and excise all that 
is bad from both organizations. This statement is broad enough to in- 
clude the suggestion that if the league, which has heretofore riveted our 
considerations and apprehensions, has been so entwined and interwoven 
into the peace of Europe, that its good must be preserved in order to 

93 



stabilize the peace of that continent, then it can be amended or revised 
so that we may still have a remnant of world aspirations in 1918 builded 
into the world's highest conception of helpful co-operation in the ulti- 
mate realization. 

I believe humanity would welcome the creation of an international 
association for conference and a world court whose verdicts upon justici- 
able questions, this country in common with all nations would be both 
willing and able to uphold. The decision of such a court or the recom- 
mendations of such a conference could be accepted without sacrificing on 
our part or asking any other power to sacrifice one iota of its nationality. 

Already Abandoned by Europe 

The Democratic nominee has spoken about America abandoning her 
associates in war and deserting the allied nations in establishing the 
league of Versailles. I do not think it longer necessary to challenge that 
statement or pass further opinion upon the unfortunate league. It has 
already been abandoned by Europe, which had gone so far as to accept 
it by formal agreement in treaty. On this subject, we are fully informed 
at first hand. Only the other day the British premier said unresentfully 
that the essential co-operation of America might involve "some change, 
at any rate, in the form of the covenant," and he added, with character- 
istic outspokenness, "it is quite possible it might be a change for the bet- 
ter." Compare this with the obstinate insistence of the President and 
the Democratic nominee upon acceptance of the original document with 
only such "interpretations" as neither safeguard our liberties nor bind 
other powers in the slightest degree to the recognition of our just and 
proper reservations. 

Listen, further, to the wise and far-seeing, former British ambassa- 
dor, who was not permitted to present his credentials to our Executive. 

On Our Own Terms 

"As long," said Viscount Grey, hardly a month ago, "as long as the 
richest, most powerful, the greatest, both for population and territory, 
of the civilized countries of the world stands outside the league, the 
league will be unable to fulfill its destiny. To put it in quite plain terms, 
the Americans must be told that if they will only join the league they 
can practically name their own terms." Undoubtedly that is the fact. 
I ask: Is there any good reason why we should not avail ourselves of this 
privilege? I do not mean in any arrogant, or domineering, or patronizing, 
or selfish way, but simply as a matter of fairness and right to our own 
people. Surely it is becoming, and a duty as well, to safeguard our own 
people, since it is we who are the main contributors, while asking nothing 
for ourselves except to participate in a contribution to the promotion of 
world peace. Would not Great Britain, in like circumstances, exercise 

94 



such a prerogative? Would not France? Would not any nation rejoicing 
in nationality, buttressed by common-sense? 

A Valued Suggestion 

Viscount Grey continues: "The Americans should be entrusted with 
the task of drafting a reconstruction scheme." Then he suggests further 
that "a committee of the Senate — we must never forget the Senate's 
rights and duties in regard to foreign affairs being reinforced by the mem- 
bers of the House of Representatives, and also by nominees of the Pres- 
ident, and Supreme Court — could draw up suggestions for the reconstruc- 
tion of the league, which would be consonant with the feeling not of one, 
but of all parties in America.' ' 

Frankly, I value that suggestion very highly, because it is proffered 
obviously in a helpful and friendly spirit and reveals an important Old 
World opinion on the necessity of amendment, revision or reconstruction. 
It comprehends substantially what I would propose to do if elected Pres- 
ident. I do not mean precisely that. It would be clearly unwise to under- 
take specific suggestions or to attempt to pass upon suggestions now. 
What is in my mind is the wisdom of calling into real conference the 
ablest and most experienced minds of this country, from whatever walks 
of life they may be derived and without regard to party afihliation, to 
formulate a definite, practical plan along the lines already indicated for 
the consideration of the controlling foreign powers. 

Very Slight Objection 

The objection, strongly uttered in some quarters, that this course 
would involve the reconvening of the entire convention may be regarded 
as a very slight one. The acceptance of our proposals by the few principal 
nations would undoubtedly be followed promptly by the acceptance on 
the part of the minor members of the alliance. 

There would be no material delay. One can not disregard the leader- 
ship or have any doubt about the influence of the principal allied and 
associated powers. Insofar as I could do so, without disregarding the 
proprieties, I should give very earnest and practically undivided atten- 
tion to this very vital subject from the day of my election and I should 
ask others to do likewise as a matter of public and patriotic duty. Indeed, 
I should hope to have behind me, after the decision on the national refer- 
endum we are soon to have, a country wholly united in earnest endeavor 
to achieve a true solution of this problem upon which the future civiliza- 
tion so largely depends. Does some one say that I ought to be more 
specific? One can not be, with any sense of certainty. No one can fore- 
see the exact conditions by which our country will be confronted seven 
months hence. World opinion and our own opinion have been changing 
very rapidly in the past few months. 

95 



Already Announced 

I have already announced that I shall urge prompt passage of the 
resolution, vetoed by the President, declaring at an end the preposterous 
condition of technical war when we are actually at peace. Simultaneously, 
I shall naturally advise the resumption by the Congress of its exceptional 
powers, which have been vested by war legislation in the Executive. I 
have no expectation whatever of finding it necessary or advisable to nego- 
tiate a separate peace with Germany. 

In view of the simple fact that the allied powers with whom we were 
associated in the war have already formally concluded their peace, the 
passage of the peace resolution by Congress would merely give formal 
recognition to an obvious fact. 

For manifest reasons, I could not hope now to reveal the exact out- 
come or to depict the precise methods of the accomplishment so much 
desired. One need have little doubt, however, of the effectiveness of the 
consciences of nations at work in concord amid the almost universal de- 
sire to take some forward, practical and effective action. During the six 
years of my service in Washington, I have co-operated quite insistently 
with my colleagues in maintaining the prerogatives of the Senate as de- 
fined by the constitution. In doing so, I felt that I was only performing 
my duty under my oath of office. Nevertheless, justly or unjustly, in 
common with others, I have been subjected to more or less criticism which, 
of course, I have no thought of resenting. The point which I have in 
mind is, if all goes well, on the 4th of March next, I shall cease to be a 
senator and almost as surely shall become the President. What I wish, 
in passing, to call to your attention, is that as senator I have established 
for myself a precedent and you may rest assured that I shall guard with 
equal firmness, insistence and jealousy the perogatives of the Executive, 
who is perhaps more distinctly and prersonally responsible than any other 
official directly to the whole American people. 

Our Unselfishness Emphasized 

Let us take stock for a moment of America in the world, aye, and 
America at home. The end of the war found our unselfishness emphasized 
to all mankind, and the garlands of world leadership were bestowed from 
every direction. We had only to follow the path of America, rejoicing 
in the inheritance which led to our eminence, to rivet the gaze 
of all peoples upon our standards of national righteousness and our 
conception of international justice. Moreover, the world was ready 
to give us its confidence. It was the beckoning opportunity of the 
centuries, not for the glorification of the New World Repub- 
lic, but for America to hold every outpost of advancing civilization and 
invite all nations to join the further advance to heights dreamed of, but 

% 



never approached before. But force of example was flung aside for force 
of armed alliance. We neglected our readjustments and restorations at 
home, and the cruel sacrifice of millions of lives and billions of treasure 
left us and the world groping in uncertainty and anxiety instead of re- 
vealing us in the sunlight of a new day, with lines formed, ready for the 
onward march of peace and all its triumphs. 

Let's Resume Our Place 
Mindful of our splendid example and renewing every obligation of 
association in war, I want America to be the rock of security at home, 
resolute in righteousness and unalterable in security and supremacy of 
the law. Let us be done with wiggling and wobbling. Steady America! 
Let us assure good fortune to all. We may maintain our eminence as a 
great people at home and resume our high place in the estimate of the 
world. Our moral leadership was lost when "Ambition" sought to super- 
impose a reactionary theory of discredited autocracy upon the progressive 
principle of living, glowing democracy. My chief aspiration, my country- 
men, if clothed with power, will be to regain that lost leadership, not for 
myself, not even for my party, though honoring and trusting it as I do, 
but for my country, the country that I love from the bottom of my 
heart,and with every fibre of my being, above all else in the world. 



A SPEECH BY SENATOR WARREN G. HARDING 

TO STATE GOVERNORS, MARION, 

OHIO, AUGUST 31, 1920 

Reclamation 

Your Excellencies: — It is a mighty pleasing thing to greet you as the 
ofhcial representatives of several of our great commonwealths, and 
especially gratifying to me to be able to take up with you, for brief 
discussion, one of the most interesting and timely problems of the day. 
I refer to that of reclamation and development in the great and won- 
derful West. What a wonderful land is ours! No one has ever come to 
a full realization of the physical imcomparableness of these United 
States. Nature has been very generous with. her bounty and has given 
us, in the great and measureless West, a variegated and picturesque 
empire, as beautiful as Switzerland, multiplied many times over in 
extent, and with a diversification of industry and enterprise which 
Switzerland could not develop because her mountains are well nigh barren 
of the riches which characterize the Rockies and the Coast ranges. 

97 



A True Appraisal 

Some day, perhaps, we shall come to an appraisal of the mountain 
West and shall learn something about its contents in coal, copper, iron, 
gold and silver, and almost every useful mineral deposit; but these are 
not all ; because the mountain West is rich in forests, and lakes of potash, 
and vast deposits of phosphates, and possesses almost measureless areas 
that need only water to make them blossom like a garden of Eden; 
and the water is available and needs only the genius and the courage and 
capacity of man to apply it practically. People of the United States con- 
template the wonderful West from varying viewpoints. In the East, the 
tendency is to think of it only as a wonderland, but those of the West, 
who have seen it from the intimate viewpoint, not only find unbounded 
interest in its possibilities, but want to sense the pride in its development. 

Further Development 

We have come to an era when further development attended by both 
reclamation and conservation, which go hand in hand, is an important 
and urgent problem. The world has always had a struggle to provide 
its food. In the practical development of the United States, we must 
ever continue the enlargement of the available food supply. Industrial 
development in the cities and agricultural development have gone more 
or less in harmony, because the one is absolutely essential to the other. 
Basically, we must be sure of our food supply first. The development of 
the Mississippi basin was cotemporaneous with the development of our 
wonderful American cities, and the marvel of American development 
began immediately after the civil war. In that conflict we made certain 
of indissoluble union and put an end to all doubts in the federal consti- 
tution and then turned to expanded settlement and development with 
full confidence in the future. 

Farms Made Available 

When the Union armies were dispersed, farms in the West were made 
available to tens of thousands of the defenders of union and nationality, 
the central plains were awaiting, almost untouched, and out of them 
were builded a dozen splendid commonwealths. There is a partially 
analogous situation now. There is an undeveloped mountain West 
awaiting the touch of genius and industry and there are doubtless 
thousands of service men who would be glad to turn to this most desirable 
development very much as service men did in the after period of the 
civil war. There are, of course, differences in condition, and the moun- 
tain lands are not so ready to answer man's call as were the prairies; 
but with a helpful policy on the part of government these lands can be 
made available for limitless contributions to the sustenance of the Repub- 
lic and the compensation of those who participate in developing them. 

98 



It does not matter whether one thinks that agriculture is the inspira- 
tion of great cities and their supporting industrial areas, or whether 
one believes that agriculture is inspired and encouraged by the neces- 
sities of the industrial centers — they are, in fact, interdependent, and 
the fortune of one is inseparably linked with the fortune of the other. 
One thing is very certain, that intensive industrial development and the 
concentration of population in cities can not go on unless we have an 
expansion of the food supply upon which they depend for sustenance. 

It is fairly contended that the American expansion of agriculture has 
had a very considerable part to play in the development of the great 
industrial centers of the Old World, as well as the magic building of our 
own. Nottingham and Manchester, Dusseldorf and Berlin, Turin and 
Barcelona, are almost as much concerned with the size of the American 
food surplus as are our own great cities. 

Food Supply Essential 

When all else is said, the fact still remains that all human endeavor 
must be assured of an ample food supply else nothing is to be accom- 
plished. It is not to be said that we have outlived the world's capacity to 
produce a surplus of agricultural products, but, confessedly, we have 
gotten out of a properly-balanced proportion in the development of our 
agricultural supply. Much of the world, of course, remains undeveloped. 
It is said that the plains of Siberia, or the productive tropics, could 
accommodate the world's population with an abundance of food, but 
the trouble is that the great, virile, progressive peoples of the world are 
not inclined to live in Siberia, nor are they attracted to the tropics. As 
a matter of simple truth they lose the distinct activity and agressive- 
ness when taken out of the zones of present-day activity. 

It is perfectly useless to talk about transplanting populations. The 
practical tasks of life are to make old Mother Earth contribute to the call 
of population wherever it may be located. Thus transportation becomes 
the key to the problem of supply. 

The inter-mountain and Pacific West is endowed with riches known 
to no other region of the world. We came to a new appreciation of these 
riches during the anxieties of the World War. Necessity and a new 
realization of self-dependence led us to appraise the vast deposits of 
phosphates and the lakes of potash and the mines of tungsten, and we 
revived the production of silver and added to the output of lead and 
copper, because the warring world had no other such dependable supply. 
We turned to the abundance of spruce for our aeroplanes, and the 
rare metals for alloys, and we found the limitless abundance of coal and 
used it to bunker the shipping of the Pacific. We increased the supply 
of the long staple cotton, and of wool, and of meats and fruits. What- 

99 



ever it was that the world greatly needed and was listed in our own 
necessities, we discovered a goodly and reassuring share of it in the vast 
storehouse of the almost untouched natural resources of the great West. 

Progress in Development 

During the war we made a good deal of progress toward development 
of these resources, because the war made rapid and intensive effort 
necessary. But with the end of the war there came a tendency to slacken 
development. We find that some things were started, and then neglected 
or forgotten. With correct vision of a long future, contemplating con- 
tinued growth, we might well recognize that to this inter-mountain 
empire we must turn for the same service as that rendered by our 
central plains when they were brought into productivity following the 
civil war. 

Our vision, then, of the ultimate development of the mountain empire, 
reveals a great region, developed uniformly, with regard to all its varie- 
gated possibilities. I have never been able to think of "reclamation" as 
connoting merely the construction of ditches, and dams, and reservoirs, to 
put water on dry lands. In my view this has been only a phase — though 
a most important phase — of reclamation. I have believed that our moun- 
tain West is one day to be one of the richest and most completely self- 
contained economic areas in the world. My vision of the future pic- 
tures it as a wonderland whose streams are harnessed to great elec- 
trical units, from which flows the power to drive railway trains, to 
operate industries, to carry on the public utilities of cities, to smelt the 
metals, and to energize the activities of a teeming population. 

Not long ago, a great journal of the South published an interview in 
which I attempted to suggest my hope and aspiration for the new 
South as a developed, renewed and finished community, based on the 
proper and complete utilization of all its opportunities. I have a similar 
thought about the possibilities of the mountain West. The "Great 
American Desert" disappeared out of our minds and geographies long 
ago, but we have retained the impression that our Rocky mountain 
area could never sustain populations and industries comparable with 
those of the central valley, or the East, or the South. This has done 
injustice to the Far West. The richness of its mountains, the power 
of its streams, the productivity of its valleys, the variety of its climate 
and opportunity, the possibility of its dry areas, all suggest its destiny 
to become the seat of an ideal civilization. 

No Equal Anywhere 

I undertake to say that there is no region in all the world whose re- 
sources could be developed to the utmost, with greater benefit to the 
world as a whole, and America in particular, than our mountain West. 

100 



It requires no effort of imagination to contemplate, a few generations 
hence, our country as a land of from two hundred to three hundred 
million people, with a third of them happily planted in this area. 

We have come to the time when the problem of our Far West is one 
of wisely directed development, rather than of too much conservation, or, 
perhaps, to put the thought more accurately, the bringing about of a de- 
gree and character of development which will constitute the wise form 
of conservation. One cannot go on saving all of nature's bounty and be 
fair to the generation of today. I do not mean that the time has come 
to break recklessly into our treasure house and squander its contents; but 
I do decidedly mean that we can not longer delay encouragement and as- 
sistance to rational, natural and becoming development. We must have 
that far-western awakening which shall prove an effective corrective of 
the concentration of population and the regional specialization of indus- 
try which has been repeatedly called to our attention and has inclined to 
make of us a sectional America. 

Conservation Necessary 

Conservation, it must always be kept in mind, does not consist in 
locking up the treasure house of our natural resources. That would be 
the most objectionable form of waste. Conservation, in its truest sense, 
consists in the judicious use of the resources which are ours. The con- 
servation policy in its application to coal is not the same as in its ap- 
plication to the forest. Coal, once it is taken from the earth, can never be 
replaced; the forests, by proper care and attention, may be made to yield 
a never-ending return. The conservation policy, as applied to rivers and 
streams, presents still another phase, since the tree which we leave stand- 
ing in the forest, and the coal we leave lying in the mine, remain for 
the use of those who may come later on, while the water which flows un- 
used to the sea is lost beyond reclaim. It is impossible, by the utmost 
utilization of our flowing waters, to affect to the extent of a single drop, 
the automatic and eternal replenishment at the source. Emphatically, 
therefore, in the case of our water power resources, there is not even a 
seeming paradox in saying that the more we use the more do we save. 

No Monopoly 

The only problem in the conservation of waters is to see to it relig- 
iously that this great inheritance of the people is not monopolized for 
private enrichment, and of this there can be little danger if the state — 
and the nation, when it has the jurisdiction — shall wisely exercise the 
powers of regulation which it possesses in respect to all public utilities. 

In a somewhat different manner, the same principle will apply to our 
other natural resources. Emphasis must be placed upon their use rather 
than upon their storage, only it must be a use which, while provid- 

101 



ing for the present needs, must keep an ever watchful guard upon their 
preservation for the need of generations yet to come. 

Vision of Roosevelt 

Theodore Roosevelt had a clear vision of the vast possibilities of our 
West. In a chapter of his autobiography devoted to "Natural Re- 
sources of the Nation," he says: "The first work I took up when I be- 
came president was the work of reclamation." In his view, reclama- 
tion, conservation and proper utilization, were all parts of the same 
program. That must be our view today. "It is better for the gov- 
ernment to help a poor man to make a living for his family, than to 
help a rich man to make more profit for his company," declared President 
Roosevelt. This he laid down as one of the principles upon which he 
based his policy toward public land areas. The principle is particularly 
sound today. We have need to make these areas the seat of millions of 
new American families, just as we broke up our prairies and distributed 
them among strong, enterprising, vigorous men who developed them into 
the great states of the Mississippi Valley. 

Homes for the People 

We must make our mountain West a country of homes for people 
who need homes. It has everything that they will need. It can provide 
them with food, with the materials for industry, with lumber from its 
forests, with metals and minerals from its mines, with power from its 
streams, and waters for the irrigation of its land. And the work must 
be so done that it will inure most to the advantage of society and the de- 
velopment of the independent, self-sustaining family unit in our citizen- 
ship. There must be proper co-operation and direction in this develop- 
ment, but there must be all care to prevent monopolization of resources 
and opportunities. 

It has been intimated by some who take, I feel, the narrow view, that 
the industry of the East, and the agriculture of the Middle West and 
South, will not view favorably the proposal to develop new industry 
and new agriculture in the mountain country to compete with them. I 
confess to very little sympathy with this attitude. The sons of New York 
and New England built the great states of the Ohio valley; and the 
sons of the Ohio valley reared the splendid commonwealths beyond the 
Mississippi. The sons of every generation, in our country, have been 
the pioneers of some new land. 

Miracle of Development 

Well do I remember the covered-wagon days of the early seventies, 
when the resolute sons of Ohio took up the westward journey. They had 
little more of valued possession than unalterable determination to start 
afresh and be participants in the development of the wonderful land 

102 



awaiting their coming. They wrought their full part in the miracle of 
development and gave an added glow to the westward march of the star 
of empire. Many who went were those who had found new soul of citi- 
zenship in the preservation of union and nationality; and it is not im- 
possible that thousands of those who battled to maintain American rights 
in the world will be eager to participate in the develpoment of the wonder- 
land we are considering today. We owe to them the fullest and widest 
opportunities, and we owe it to them to give of government encourage- 
ment and aid in bringing about the development so much to be desired. 
For them and for America inestimable possibilities are in store. 

Today we are informed on the basis of statistics that if the demands 
of a rapidly-increasing population are to be met, new farms must be 
opened at the rate of 100,000 annually. The sad fact is that only half 
that number are being added to our equipment for production every 
year. The United States has changed, from a basically agricultural to 
an agricultural and industrial nation. The 1920 statistics, we are told, 
will show that our population is preponderantly urban. More foodstuffs 
must be had; farms now operating will not supply present demands. 
The one solution is to bring more land into production. 

Reclamation, as I have viewed it, means a good deal more than mere- 
ly putting water on arid land. There are regions in which it means 
draining the water away from swamps. There are other regions in which 
it means restoring forests that have been thoughtlessly destroyed. 
There are still others in which it means frank recognition of the fact that 
forests have gone forever, that stumps of cut-over lands must be removed 
and the soil utilized for agriculture. 

Nobody Wants Isolation 

Nobody wants isolated communities of agricultural producers in 
remote reclaimed valleys, to produce things for which there is no avail- 
able market. There have been some instances of this sort. But with 
better transportation, with encouragement to wide and varied develop- 
ment, the problem of markets will solve itself rapidly enough. 

In dealing with our public lands hereafter we are not to be too prof- 
ligate in the disposal of their resources. There has been profligacy 
practiced in the past, though I take it that some of it was entirely justi- 
fiable, but there must be no further doling out of our natural resources 
to favored groups. We have passed the stage when there must be excep- 
tional bidding for pioneer development. It was against profligacy that 
Roosevelt raised his voice and exercised the veto power. He started the 
great reclamation movement and it came none too soon. Doubtless he 
had in mind the time when these resources must be opened for free, full 
and independent development. Undoubtedly, if he were alive today, he 

103 



would be a cordial sympathizer with the same policy of development com- 
bined with a rational policy of conservation of resources for Americans 
yet to come, all of which is consonant with square dealing with all 
Americans engaged in the fulfillment of our obligations of today. 
Forward Looking Program 

It is all a forward-looking program with an ever mindfulness of the 
passing day. The great change in our whole economic situation, and 
the realization that our opportunities of providing for increased popula- 
tion have a definite limit, must enforce this view. Roosevelt performed 
a great service to the nation, and what he did for his time we must 
carry forward to the future. I would not have the West return to the 
era of speculative operations, tending to monopolies. I want to see, as 
he did, a development of our public land country which will insure 
the utmost equality of privilege and opportunity. 
Best Serve the Nation 

In some places private capital, in others public funds can best do the 
work that is required. I have no particular preference for either pro- 
gram, except that I would like to see in each instance the policy that 
will on the whole best serve the national purpose. I would not hesitate 
to employ federal credit for certain types of reclamation work, and on 
the other side I would not stand in the way of having that work done 
by private enterprise, if this seemed best. 

Western states desirous of co-operating with the federal government 
in reclamation contemplate enactment of uniform laws to aid in financ- 
ing reclamation work in conjunction with the federal plan of impound- 
ing waters. Lack of unified efTort and policy has been a misfortune in the 
past, and the time has come for a fixed and comprehensive program. 

What is really needed is the completion of the reclamation program 
which began under Republican administration, which has been neglected 
since 1913. We ought to go on with a larger and more liberal plan, made 
practical in the light of our experience. 

In broadest contemplation, we must keep in mind the thing which 
inspires all of our activities. I have an abiding conviction that American 
nationality has been the inspiration from the beginning. We found that 
inspiration renewed and magnified when we made sure of indissoluble 
union and started afresh for the supreme American fulfillment. The 
impelling thought now is to go on as Americans, free and independent 
and self-reliaat, to make the United States a great Republic, unafraid and 
confident of its future and rejoicing in American accomplishment. 



104 



A SPEECH BY SENATOR WARREN G. HARDING 

TO DELEGATION OF CHICAGO SCHOOL 

TEACHERS, MARION, OHIO, 

SEPTEMBER 2, 1920 

Gentlemen of the Committee: — Your visit to me today is one which 
I most heartily welcome because it suggests an appeal to the sympathy 
and concern of every American. You represent the great army of teachers 
of this country — those patient soldiers in the cause of humanity upon 
whom rests one of the most profound responsibilities given to any men 
or women. 

And yet, the disadvantages that beset your profession indicate a 
serious menace to our national institutions. It is indeed a crisis in 
American education that confronts us. If we continue to allow our public 
instructors to struggle with beggarly wages we shall find ourselves with 
closed schools; our education will languish and fail. It is a patent fact 
that never have our teachers, as a whole, been properly compensated. 
From the days when the country teachers "boarded around" to the 
present hour the profession has never been adequately compensated. 
Requiring, as it does, a high degree of mental equipment, a long prepara- 
tion, severe examination tests, the maintenance of a proper state in 
society, and giving employment only a part of the year, with compensa- 
tion too meager, the wonder of it is that we have had the service of these 
devoted persons employed in educating our youth. 

I have a personal recollection of the old-time estimate of school 
teaching, because I taught one session of district school. For the autumn 
months I received $20.00 per month, for the winter double the price, 
not that I taught better or more, but probably because I builded the 
fires and had more sweeping to do. But then, and earlier, teaching was 
not a life profession, but rather a resort to youth's temporary earnings, to 
help prepare for something else. Today teaching is a life work, a great 
profession, a life offering on the altar of American advancement. 

Education is recognized in our organic law, but it did not need that 
declaration. America's greatness, her liberty, and her happiness are 
founded upon her intelligence. They are founded upon that wide dis- 
semination of knowledge which comes only to the many through our 
educational system. 

This subject touches every individual in America. All of us are con- 
cerned in our common schools. We ought to be as interested in our 
teacher's pay as we are in our own. We can't be confident of our schools 

105 



unless we are confident of our teachers and know they are the best that 
a great work may command. 

Whatever the cause may be for failure to recognize the value of the 
teacher, measured in wages, it is a lamentable fact that the teacher has 
done his or her patient service improperly rewarded through all the 
years. The burdens of the teachers have increased, greater exactions as 
to fitness have been imposed, the cost of living has gone up, but we have 
failed to meet the change. 

We have now reached a crisis, when it is imperative that something 
must be done. I know with what difficulty our public schools have been 
operated during the past two or three years. Teachers have left the 
schools for more promising employments and their places have been left 
unfilled with new enlistments. This is a condition not only fatal if con- 
tinued, but it reflects discredit upon every citizen who has not demanded 
correction of the evil. We make drafts upon our public treasuries, we 
are taxed, sometimes unnecessarily, for almost every other conceivable 
purpose. Let us support adequately the standards of our schools. Let all 
Americans recognize the necessity and determine upon relief. When the 
facts are known, America and Americans will respond. 

It is fair to say that the federal government is not responsible and 
cannot assume to trespass, but it can give of its influence, it can point out 
the peril which ought to be clearly evident to every community, it can 
emphasize the present crisis and make an unfailing call for the education- 
al preparedness for citizenship which is so essential to our continued 
triumphs. 

It is a rather curious indication of the trend toward federal control 
that at this very moment not less than four or five new cabinet offices are 
being proposed — and not without argument, let me say. Some feel there 
should be a reorganization of the Department of the Interior, — they 
want to create this and that — and not without reason, too, because it has 
become a tremendous government within itself. There is one call for a 
department of engineering — another for a department of health, and 
thus I might run on. I am not a mirror (?) of human intelligence, and 
cannot pretend to say to you today what ought to be done in each in- 
stance, but I can say to you that I am concerned just as deeply as you 
are respecting this question of bringing American education up to the 
very highest standard. 

I am not a student of the Smith-Towner Bill to which you have 
alluded, and I could not be so unfair as glibly to pledge to you any 
specific action this morning. You would not believe in me if I did, but I 
do pledge you the most sympathetic concern, and a determination if re- 
sponsibility comes upon me, to call the attention of the Congress to the 

106 



impending crisis in American education, and to urge the best thought of 
the country to its early solution. 



A SPEECH BY SENATOR WARREN G. HARDING 
TO REPRESENTATIVES OF CHICAGO NA- 
TIONAL LEAGUE BASEBALL CLUB, 
SEPTEMBER 2, 1920 

I pay to you my tribute to baseball, because I like the game, just like 
every other real American. It has been in the blood for over a half cen- 
tury, and it has helped us as a people. Of course, there has been a vast 
improvement since the early game, but I am sure it is not reactionary to 
remind you that you still try to hit them out and the big thing is to reach 
the home plate. There are progressive ideas, but it rejoices the average 
crowd of rooters to note an old-fashioned Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance. 

I like the tension of a tight game. I like to see the balls go over the 
plate, and see decisions follow. I admire the skill of the pitcher, but I 
like to see the ball hit. I like the rooters. It is great to be a rooter. It is 
fine to see him recognizing a great play, but I like his partisanship, his 
zeal for the home team, his eagerness to help win. There is soul in his in- 
terest and he works as hard as the players. That is the explanation of 
baseball popularity. We are all partisans of some team. I am sure I re- 
joiced as much as Garry Hermann when the Reds copped last year. It 
adds to the absorbing spirit to be an enthusiastic partisan, I never saw 
a game without taking sides, and never want to see one. There is the soul 
of the game. I feel the same way in big national matters. I like to think 
of America first. I want our country to float the championship pennant in 
the contest for human achievement. 

You can't win ball games with a one-man team. Games are won by 
good pitching, good catching, good fielding, good defense and good offense, 
hitting them out and team work. I like a pitcher who puts the ball over 
and trusts his fielders to play their stations. I like a team that knows its 
signals, and I salute the player who ignores the individual record and 
goes out to win the game. 

No one man can win a pennant. It can't be done in baseball or in 
the conduct of government. From either viewpoint the game is too big 
and too fast, and too many rooters concerned. 

Maybe it is old-fashioned, but I am for team play. This harmony of 
endeavor, where every man plays his part, no matter who is starring, is 
what wins in baseball and will win victories for these United States. 

107 



I am opposing the one-man play for the nation. Too much fanning 
out, too much unpreparedness, for war or for peace. Nobody has confi- 
dence in a ball team which is untrained. National unpreparedness for 
war cost us many precious lives and endless billions in waste, and unpre- 
paredness for peace is costing billions more and holding us in anxiety and 
uncertainty. 

It is my observation that the National team, now playing for the 
United States, played loosely and muffed disappointingly in our domes- 
tic affairs, and then struck out at Paris. No one can dispute the American 
team played badly when it got on a foreign field. 

As a spokesman for the Republican Party I am urging team play in 
government, on the home grounds, with all the home fans behind us, 
and team play when we represent America in the all-the- world series. 
There are too many men batting above three hundred to rely on one 
hitter. 

And I am advocating something more — play according to the rules. 
It is the only fair way, because the rules apply to all players precisely 
alike. The rules in the supreme American game are in the federal con- 
stitution, and the umpire is the American people. Stick to the rules, hold 
fast to the constitution, and we can be sure we are right. 

There was a meeting of league officials where they sought to change 
the rules. In the parlance of the game, the contending team tried a squeeze 
play, and expected to score — six to one against the United States. But the 
American Senate was ready with the ball at the plate, and we are still 
flying our pennant which we won at home and hold respected throughout 
the world. 

Hail to the team play of America! Hail to a hundred millions of 
American rooters, the citizenship of the Republic, who expect Uncle Sam 
to put them over or bat them out as the situation requires, and counts 
upon team play in government, team play in citizenship and everybody 
interested in America first. 



108 



A SPEECH BY SENATOR WARREN G. HARDING 

TO VETERANS OF WORLD WAR, MT. 

GILEAD, OHIO, SEPTEMBER 3, 1920 

If it had not been for the United States Senate exercising its consti- 
tutional functions without regard to party lines and in full devotion to 
duty, in my honest judgment America would again be at war, instead of 
dwelling in the peace we now enjoy. I warn you that if you accept the 
League of Nations pact as originally drafted we will be committed in all 
honor to go to the help of European nations. 

I believe that e\ery American should do everything he can to show 
his gratitude to the young men who went out to defend our country in 
the World War. I want to show my gratitude in helping America to do 
its part to see that neither they, their sons, nor their sons' sons shall ever 
be called to the battle front again. If I speak the conscience of America, 
we will lead the world to outlaw war, and I am not uttering the senti- 
ments of a pacifist people. 

No nations are isolated any longer. I think this new relationship ought 
to be turned into a relationship among nations of fellowship, of concord 
and of peace. If it should be my good fortune to be called to authority, 
everything possible will be done to bring the world into co-operation, 
but without a single thing being done to surrender the independence and 
freedom of our country. 



109 



A SPEECH BY SENATOR WARREN G. HARDING 

TO THE NATIONAL FARM BOARD OF FARM 

ORGANIZATIONS, MARION, OHIO, 

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 1920 

With your assent, I will not welcome you as representatives of farm- 
ers' organizations and I shall make no appeal, either now or later, to the 
people of the country which may be labeled an appeal in behalf of 
farmers. 

Permit me therefore to welcome you as Americans, permit me to wel- 
come you as producers whose Americanism is so sound that I may and 
do consider that you represent here today the consumers of the United 
States, and I address you not as farmers but as patriotic citizens of the 
United States. Every word that I say to you is addressed not to your 
welfare alone, but to the welfare of every man, woman and child, and to 
the welfare of the future citizens of our country. 

I deplore the use in political campaigns or in public administration 
of special appeals and of special interests. I deplore any foreign policy 
which tends to group together those of foreign blood in groups of their 
nativity. I deplore undue meddling in the affairs of other nations, which 
may, some day in a future election, result in a hyphenated vote control- 
ling the balance of power which may be delivered to that candidate who 
is most supine in the face of un-American pressure. I deplore class ap- 
peals at home. I deplore the soviet idea, and the compromises and en- 
couragements which we have seen extended to it. 

Long ago, when the responsibility for leadership in this fight we are 
making, to put America back onto the main road, was placed upon me, 
I said to myself that we must all unite under the slogan "America First." 
When I say America First I mean not only that America maintain her 
own independence and shall be first in fulfilling her obligations to the 
world, by deeds rather than words, and by example rather than preach- 
ing, but I mean that at home any special interest, any class, any group 
of our citizenship that has arrayed itself against the interests of all, must 
learn that at home, as well as abroad, America First has a meaning, pro- 
found, and with God's aid, everlasting. 

Fortunately for this meeting, as we stand face to face, it is true that 
you, representing in part the farmers of this country, and I, are charged 
with an obligation of program and definite action that fosters the welfare 
of all America, the welfare of the man who lives in the house with the red 
barn and the productive fields behind it, and also the welfare of the man 

110 



who, in a crowded industrial city, comes home at nightfall to climb the 
stairs to his fourth-floor home, behind the fire escapes, with hunger in his 
body. 

I desire with all my heart to speak for the consumer when I speak of 
American agriculture. I desire to put aside platitudes about the worth 
and merits of all the poetic tradition about the honest farmer. Honesty 
is not peculiar to any occupation. I desire to awake the country to the 
menaces to its future unless American agriculture is preserved, and above 
all, I desire that I may have a hand in stopping bungling and economic 
nonsense and false promises and prodigal waste and dictatorial powers, 
all of which have smothered the farmer, as they have smothered us all, 
for eight years in taxes and interferences. Instead of unworkable words 
and over-worked executive powers I desire, in this great agricultural 
problem as in all our national problems, to go back to the functions of 
our Republic and of our representative system. I want to restore the 
will of the people and stop the will of the wilfitl. And, under the restora- 
tion, I desire to deal with all our great problems, not in the twilight of 
generalities, but in the full sunlight of definition and forward marching. 

With the agriculture of the United States — the basic industry — I am 
deeply concerned. If history does not deceive us by unchanging repeti- 
tions of her precepts, a nation lives no longer than her agricultural health 
abides. It is the soil that is our mother, and the mother of nations; it is 
land hunger that founds revolutions, anarchy and decay. We must look 
our land problems and farming situation squarely in the face and act 
bravely and wisely and promptly. In doing so, you and I, a candidate 
for responsibility, must turn to the consumers of the United States and 
say, "This is your problem and your posterity's problem as well as ours." 

I cannot say to you today all that I shall say during the campaign, to 
the consumers of the United States about the agricultural needs of Amer- 
ica. But I shall say to them, as I now say to you, the day of land hunger 
has come. The day when we see before us the spectacle of the land-own- 
ing farmer being displaced by capitalistic speculation in land and the 
soil-exhausting and landlord-exploited tenant farmer has come. The day 
when the share of the American farmer in whatever is left of prosperity 
has been overtopped by the share taken by our industrial production, has 
come. The day when industry outbids agriculture for labor has come. 
The day when the profit of the farmer has been cut down and the price 
to the consumer has been lifted up, has come. The day when bad and 
wasteful distribution between producer and consumer, and the day of 
too much unrighteous profiteering, by too many unnecessary middlemen, 
has come. The day when production of our soil must be protected against 
the soil products of countries of low standards of living, has come, 

111 



These conditions call for wise action on the part of government. They 
call for good counsel. They call for the presence of the American farmer 
in our government offices, administrative and representative. They call 
for extension of the farm loan principle, not only in the case of the man 
who already owns a farm, but to worthy Americans who want to acquire 
farms. In other words, they call for capital available to the farmers of 
America as a bulwark against the exploits of capital available to the land 
speculator. 

Furthermore, these conditions call for a willingness of all Americans 
to act together in restoring to American agriculture a prosperity that will 
keep the land owner and land worker upon our soil. We must obliterate 
the picture of this year 1920, when we have allowed the labor of the 
farm-wife and young girls and old women to be the substitute for normal 
farm labor. The women have helped to guarantee to consumers of the 
United States and dependent nations their full food supply, and though 
it is a monument to them we must find ways to restore a more normal 
and a more American labor supply to our farms. 

I shall soon set forth at greater length the proposals in mind to remedy 
these conditions. On this occasion, however, I lay stress upon one — 
co-operation. 

I believe that the American people, through their government and 
otherwise, not only in behalf of the farmer but in behalf of their own wel- 
fare, and the pocketbooks of the consumers of America, will encourage, 
make lawful, and stimulate co-operative buying, co-operative distribu- 
tion and co-operative selling of farm products. 

Industry has been organized; labor has been organized; co-operation 
within industry and within labor, and indeed, co-operation between the 
two, is far advanced. I do not contemplate the organization of the farm- 
ers and consumers of this country as a step toward organization of special 
interests to obtain special favors. If I did, I would oppose it. But I know 
full well that we must, all of us consumers — the laborers, the business 
men, the teachers, the children, the rich and the poor, the young and the 
old, the men and the women, act together to find our way closer and 
easier and cheaper to the sources of our food supply. And I know full 
well that the farmers must work together to find their way, by better 
transportation, better marketing and organized co-operative effort, 
closer to the consumers of America. 

If these two — producers and consumers of food — are not brought 
closer together by organization, by better railroad service, by the auxil- 
iary of motor truck facilities, by better roads, by the removal of legal 
obstructions to organized effort, I know that organized profiteering will 
squeeze in somewhere between the producer and the consumer. 

112 



I do not speak in a sentimental generality when I say this. I hope I 
am saying something to point the way, not only to a fair and just pros- 
perity to American agriculture which will tend to stop land speculation 
and the increase of the tenant farmer, but will be one big, practical step 
taken against the high cost of living. It will be taken in the name of no 
class but in the name of the people of America. 



A SPEECH BY SENATOR WARREN G. HARDING 

TO REPRESENTATIVES OF GREAT LAKES 

BAND, MARION, OHIO, SEPTEMBER 4, 1920 

I appreciate deeply your coming here to see me. I assume that your 
coming is in large part due to the fact that I am a candidate for the 
presidency. It is because I feel more deeply about it every day that I 
want to tell you, American citizens, and through you, as many Americans 
as possible, my ideas of the responsibilities of a candidate for the highest 
office the people can bestow. The first of these responsibilities I have 
borne in mind and I will continue to preserve it. It arises from the fact 
that my duty as a candidate, before election, compels me to put higher 
even than obligation to a great and wise and growing political party, my 
obligations to all Americans. 

I have said to myself, you owe it to the citizens of America to pre- 
serve the attitude and the mind of one who serves as well as he can. 

Against All Pretense 

As I see it, I owe it to the men and women of America to guard against 
all pretense. 

As I see it, I owe it to them to state fully and clearly my beliefs with 
all the sincerity there is in me. 

As I see it, I must not, as I seek to gain votes for my party, yield to 
the temptation which often comes to men who are candidates, to make 
false appeals and appeals which, though they might be successful at the 
moment, do not serve truth or do not meet the requirements of our 
national dignity. 

As I see it, I must not drag the attention of the American people into 
the mire when it is their whole-hearted desire that their attention should 
be centered upon the problems which we all wish to face bravely and 
wisely and together. 

As I see it, I must concentrate my attention upon construction and 
not upon abuse. 

113 



As I see it, I must be patient and tolerant with those Americans who 
differ with me. 

Voice of People 

As I see it, I must assume an attitude which is firm, but is ever 
listening to the voice of the people and ever watchful to preserve our 
constitutional rights to representative government, rather than gov- 
ernment by propaganda and executive powers. 

Every citizen must realize that America wants deeds rather than 
words and that the proper solution of pressing problems is more im- 
portant than appeal for momentary favor. 

As I see it, I must remember, as I have remembered today, to address 
myself to the whole of the American people and to keep close to my heart 
as well as to my head, the interest of the whole of the American people. 

As I see it, if I were to stoop to insincerity, to mere clamor, to po- 
litical expediency, to appeals to special classes, I would be failing in 
that purpose which I trust shall always be mine, not my own interest, 
not even the interest of my party first, but America first. 



A SPEECH BY SENATOR WARREN G. HARDING 
DELIVERED LABOR DAY, MONDAY SEP- 
TEMBER 6, AT MARION, OHIO 

Ladies and Gentlemen, My Countrymen All: — Life is Labor, or 
labor is life, whichever is preferred. Men speak of the labor issue as para- 
mount or imperious or critical — it is always the big thing, because it is 
the process of all progress and attainment, and has been since the world 
began. The advocate of excessively-reduced periods of labor simply pro- 
poses to slow down human attainment, because labor is the agency of all 
attainment. If by some miracle of agreement we could reduce the hours 
of labor to four per day — I speak of labor now in the sense of that which 
is employed for pay — the live, progressive, civilization-creating, progres- 
sive labor would have to go on working twice or thrice that time, because 
labor is the ferment of human development. No one will challenge these 
general truths, but we do have a conflict of opinion as to how labor shall 
be employed and the measure of its compensation. 

It is impossible for me to ignore the fact that I am the candidate of 
a great party for a place of high responsibility, but I choose to make 
such utterances as are in my mind on this always-significant holiday, be- 
cause I preferred to talk before my fellow-townsmen with whom I have 
worked so many years. 

114 



Have to be Square 

Neighbors have to be on the square with one another and see that 
deeds accord with words. Somehow I wanted to look you in the face and 
ask for the sponsor for that miserable old falsehood about a dollar a day- 
being enough for any workingman. If the author was seeking to apply it 
to me, I think he must have meant a dollar an hour. You see, I have been 
a dweller among you for thirty-eight years. Part of that time I was a 
wage- earner myself — all the time I have been a laborer — and for more 
than thirty years I have been an employer as well as laborer, and a 
man can't preach one doctrine and practice another. 

I am particularly glad, Mr. Hutchinson, national head of Carpenters 
and Joiners, is here today, not because he could testify to my friendly 
endeavor when it was timely to prove friendship, but because Labor day 
was originated in the mind of P. J. McGuire, the father of that union, 
and a long time its secretary. McGuire gave us the holiday which 
Congress later legalized, and McGuire gave an effective life to Labor's 
advancement, and we gladly render him our homage on this fortieth 
Labor day. 

Not Unseemly 

It will not be unseemly if I say to you today what I said to a large and 
general assemblage of my countrymen on the occasion of my official 
notification. I wish it distinctly noted that I shall say nothing to one 
group of fellow citizens which I could not as cordially utter to another. 
It was my good fortune, a few days ago, to have a call from a committee 
representing several American farm organizations, and I told thrm frank- 
ly I preferred to greet them as fellow-Americans rather than farmers, be- 
cause our big thought must be of American consumers, they among them. 
They were concerned in producing food, which is of first concern to all 
America. And while I address you as a typical assemblage of American 
laborers, I am thinking of industrial America, that industrial America in 
which every one of our hundred millions is deeply concerned, and the 
good fortune of whose workers is of highest interest to our people as a 
whole. 

No Party Indifferent 

Do not let anyone ever tell you that any political party is insensible 
to the cause of labor. Parties are the agencies of government, and men 
who assume public responsibility are deeply anxious about the com- 
mon weal. Demagogue or agitator, most of whom are agitating for the 
profit therein, "Red" or reactionary, all of them belie the high intent and 
genuine concern of parties and government for the highest good for- 
tunes of all the people. Frankly, I do not think any party is indifferent 
or unmindful. The only difference is in the program for the greatest 

115 



good. I want you to understand me definitely. So far as. I can be helpful, 
it shall be along the line of promoting the good fortunes of all the 
American people, because in common good fortune, made secure, we 
have the field in which to work to adjust the distribution of rewards 
to the highest conception of fairness and justice. 

Never Back to Old Order 

Let me renew that public utterance which I meant to repeat. Noting 
the advanced ground reached through the sufferings and sacrifices of the 
World War, I said we contemplated a new level, a new order, and would 
never return to the old pre-war conditions. No such return has ever been 
recorded in all history. I spoke of high wages, and said I wished the 
existing high scale to remain, on one explicit condition — that for the 
high wage, the American workman shall give to his task the highest 
degree of efficiency. There isn't any other solution. There isn't any 
other way to keep wages high and lower the cost of living to any appre- 
ciable degree. 

The menace of the present day is inefficient production. I am not ad- 
vocating the driving, slavish period of toil, which saps men's energies 
and oppresses the spirit, but I do advocate honest, efficient return for 
proper pay. I hold that the slacker, the loafer on the job, is not only the 
greatest obstacle to labor's advancement, but he is cheating his fellows 
more than he does his employer. The workman who deliberately adds to 
costs robs a fellow-workman who must buy, and impedes the way to 
that ideal condition where wage exceeds the cost of living, and there is 
a balance for the bank account, for home acquirement and indulgence in 
amusement, diversion and the becoming luxuries which contribute to the 
ideal life. 

Let No One Beguile You 

Let no one beguile you with dreams of idleness, of the passing of 
employment, or the abolition of employer and employee. Life without 
toil, if possible, would be an intolerable existence. Work is the supreme 
engagement, the sublime luxury of life. And there will be employers 
so long as there is leadership among men, and there will be employees 
until human progress is paralyzed and the development of human kind 
dies on one common altar of mediocrity. Our problem then is to find the 
high order of employment, the ideal relationship, the conditions under 
which we may work to the highest attainment and the greatest common 
good for all concerned. 

It is utterly false to assume that labor and capital are in deadly con- 
flict. Such a preachment comes from those who would destroy our social 
system. More, these two elements do not constitute alone the fabric of 
our industrial life, and neither of them, alone, ever added to the treasure 

116 



of mankind. The element of management is as essential to present-day 
industrial success, amid modern complexities, as breath to the human 
body. And indissolubly linked with these three is the consuming public. 
Each Essential to Other 

It is not important to establish which element comes first, since each 
is essential to the other. We do know that labor, the human element, 
is of deepest public concern. Hence it is that American public opinion, 
which is invariably the ruling force in popular government, when delib- 
erately crystallized, wishes the labor forces to be satisfied. Not contented, 
because contentment is the awaiting avenue to paralysis, but so satis- 
fied that there is a soul of interest in all our employments. 

The deplorable side of modern industry, with gigantic factory and the 
productive machinery, is that too many men are toiling like machines 
at work. There ought to be more in a day's work than the mere grind 
and the pay therefor, even though the pay is generous. Men ought to 
know a pride in the thing done. There ought to be inspiration to skill 
and glory in accomplishment. One ought to have before him the goal 
of being best, in his line. The mere fulfillment of the requirements to 
hold a job never made a superintendent or reached a captaincy in all 
the world of employment. Contentment with a job, with eyes riveted 
on pay day, without enthusiasm to accomplish or a desire to excel, never 
made an advance for any man anywhere. 

The Big Inspiration 

The big inspiration in life is to get on. We can not get on all alike 
or be rewarded precisely alike. God Almighty never intended it to be so, 
else He had made us all alike. But we may get on according to our talent, 
our capacity, and our industry, and out of the advancement of those who 
lead, must come higher standards for all. 

I have no patience for those who commend the levels of mediocrity. 
That would halt the whole human procession. As I look into your faces, 
I can read the aspirations in many a breast. Search the hearts of the 
parenthood in this assemblage. Fathers and mothers are thinking of 
their children, and they want them to get on. They often deny them- 
selves to educate their children and ultimately find compensation in that 
denial. They educate so that sons and daughters may do better than 
they — it is the natural desire of aspiring life. This is why the world 
advances. This is the soul of advancing civilization. When men tell 
you this is the privilege of the few, they challenge your intelligence. It 
is the opportunity of all. Not all avail themselves, but the opportunity 
beckons. 

What's the Explanation? 

I have seen this city grow from the village of four thousand to the 

117 



city of thirty thousand. I know the men who are the captains of industry 
and the commanders of trade and the leaders of finance. I have as- 
sociated with the head of one great concern when he was toiling for 
seventy-five cents a day as a youth in the shops. I have seen another at 
the bench, and still another when trying to make the pay envelope meet 
his obligations. I know one bank leader as the boy who swept out and 
did the chores, another as a dollarless farmer boy, another as a struggling 
youth no more favored than the poorest boy. What's the explanation? 
Industry, thrift, love of work, interest in their tasks, ambition to get on. 
I wish I could plant the gospel of loyalty to work and interest in ac- 
complishment. It is the ambition to succeed, the determination to do 
the most and best — these speed men on to the heights. The pity is that 
we do not have enough of it under modern conditions. There is too much 
mechanical grind, too little contact between employer and employe, 
too little understanding of their mutuality of interest and their joint 
triumph in success. I hail with equal satisfaction the workman who 
has pride in the factory and its output, and the employer who has pride 
and sympathetic interest in his workmen. I want to stress the need of 
pride. There is little enough to inspire under our modern system, and 
I want to magnify all there is. And above all else I want American 
workmen to feel that American products are the best in the world. 
There is only a touch of satisfaction to say our output is biggest, but it 
sets the heart aglow to proclaim America's output is the best. 

Sorry for Its Passing 

I am sorry the old, intimate contact between employer and employe 
is gone. When there was intimate touch there was little or rare mis- 
understanding. I wish we could have the intimacy restored, not in the 
old way, but through a joint committee of employers and employes, not 
to run the business, but to promote and maintain the mutuality of inter- 
est and the fullest understanding. Herein lies the surest remedy for 
most of our ills. Nay, more, I will put it more strongly, I have spoken 
the preventive — the understanding which prevents disputes, or settles 
them on the spot. 

I never had any trouble with our labor forces in the printing line, 
though our "boys and girls" have been organized for seventeen years. 
We know each other pretty well. And yet, with all our intimacy and 
our freedom from disputes, I may not understand them as I ought, nor 
do they understand all they ought. Let me give you an example, because 
it will illustrate the need of understanding. The basic material, the one 
thing we must have in the newspaper business is print paper. There has 
been a shortage of production and the market has been wild. We contract 
our annual supply, but we could not add the amount necessary to meet 

118 



our normal growth. To meet the volume of business and keep all our men 
employed we had to buy extra print paper as best as we could, and the 
excess above the contract cost was sufficient to pay out $300 additional 
wage to every workman in the shop. But we were obliged to meet so ex- 
cessive an outlay, and could not pass it on to readers, yet no workman 
had to bear any share of the strain. Never forget that there are two sides, 
and I want each to understand the other. I want employers to know 
what is in the hearts of the workmen — their aspirations, their trials, their 
problems — all the things essential to concord and good spirit. 

Business of Its Own 

To be specific, the need of today is the extension by employers of 
the principle that each job in the big plant is a little business of its own. 
The reason men in modern, specialized industry go crazy from lack of 
self-expression is that they are allowed to be mere mechanical motion- 
makers. They ought to be taught by employers the significance of this 
job — its unit costs, its relations to other operations, the ways to its 
greater efficiency. In a word, the employer owes it to his men to make 
them feel that each job is a little business of its own. In this way, as some 
one has said, the job stops being an enemy of the man and becomes his 
associate and friend, and the success achieved opens the way for his 
looked-for advancement. 

The world is thinking about means to prevent war among nations, 
and we approve, and share the aspiration. But America is also thinking 
about preventing industrial conflict, and all attending waste, suffering and 
anxiety. The matter has become of interest to the public, even more than 
the forces engaged in any conflict. 

Why Not About Table First 

Our observation is, as an eminent labor leader has said, that "all 
strikes sooner or later are settled around a table; then why not get 
around a table before the strike begins?" 

We can not have compulsory arbitration, because all parties must 
consent to establish arbitration and enforce its conclusions. I think we 
can have and ought to have, volitional arbitration. The best thought 
of the day commends this way to settlement. 

In the broad sense labor's business is selling its skilled or unskilled 
endeavor, and the basic cost is the cost of living. What labor receives 
over and above cost of living is pay for its preparation, and a profit 
for its inspiration. 

Insistent Thought of the Day 

The insistent thought of the day is to add to this profit, to widen the 
difference between mere cost and the wage received. All the influence 
and the organization in the world will not equalize a living cost among 

119 



a hundred millions. Rentals, until home-owning becomes more wide- 
spread — as I hope it will become widespread — vary according to lo- 
calities and conditions. The wage scale which contemplates a rental 
cost in one place might be wholly inadequate to meet the cost in another, 
and a nationalized scale would work an injustice. This point was devel- 
oped in the recent railway controversies, and proved some very real 
grievances which the people had not dreamed. 

This brings me to the subject of railway legislation, and the enact- 
ment of the Cummins-Esch bill restoring the railways to the lawful 
owners. We owed it to the railway owners to restore their property, 
seized for war service, just as we owe the return of the people's money 
invested in government loans. In free and thoughtful America we 
do not take advantage of war's tumult to change the regular order of 
things. I am well aware that many earnest railway workers and advo- 
cates of the Socialist plan preferred to take the railroads and put them 
under the operation of the employes, but that was not keeping faith 
with America or American promises. We were honor bound to make the 
return. I favored it for the additional reason that I do not believe in 
government ownership. 

Government's Hands Full 

The government must do many things, but it has enough to do with- 
out invading the field of private activity, not, at any rate, until govern- 
ment demonstrates its capacity for efficiency. 

I do not pretend to say the railway act is perfect, indeed, I know it 
is not. But Congress was dealing with a problem of first importance, 
and it had to speed the legislation. There was the conflict of many minds 
as it was right there should be, and the final act was a compromise. 
Nevertheless, I believe it to be a good law, and, cordially supported 
it. Many railway labor leaders have cried out against it, but I can only 
wonder why, except for the fundamental objections to the release of gov- 
ernment operation. 

It does not guarantee dividends, it limits them. It did make a six 
months' guarantee, but that was to enable the stupendous financing for 
rehabilitation. There was no ample upkeep during the war, and the 
public is suffering today from railway inadequacy. 

The government has held a commission control over financing, rate- 
making and all that concerns the shipping public, and has made working 
conditions and wages matters of concern to government itself. Railway 
workers are made a preferred class, and government has singled out 
railway workers to see that their just treatment is a matter of public 
pledge. This is progress. 

120 



An Inalienable Right 

This law does not contain an anti-strike clause. You can not take 
away from any man the right to quit his employment, but it does aim 
at the prompt, instant grant of justice, full justice; and justice, men, is 
the best guarantee of all civilization. It does not interfere with collective 
bargaining; on the contrary it facilitates it. More, the brief experience 
already had, proves that Congress has provided the way to immediate 
hearing of the grievances of railway workmen and prompt compliance 
with their just demands. No labor in the world today is so fortunately 
situated as that on the American railroads. 

Let us try out the act and the railway restoration in patience. If we 
have fallen short, the conscience of America will sanction every modifi- 
cation needed to aim at perfection. America wants her railway workmen 
justly treated, and will tolerate nothing less, and America wants her 
honest investments properly protected, with justice to every agency 
employed in this great machine of railway transportation. 

I have said it before, and I repeat it now, I want the Anerican railway 
workers to know the best possible working conditions and to be the 
best paid in the world. Our food, our activities, our exchanges, so much 
depends on the great railway operations, and above all else, all who 
travel trust their lives to railway skill and fidelity. It ought to be, and 
must be, the best in the world. 

The Protective Policy 

I said parties were always concerned with the welfare of labor. 
The Republican Party had its birth to free the slave labor of America. 
Instantly it turned to insuring conditions to afford the abundance of 
employment. 

I believe in the protective policy which prospers America first, and 
exalts American standards of wage and American standards of living 
high above the Old World. We have little thought of these things during 
the war, because America was exporting instead of importing — shipping 
out instead of shipping in — but it will soon be a different situation in 
the world exchange. I do not object to humanity seeking equalized 
standards of employment and living, but I do insist in Old World stand- 
ards being raised to ours, not ours lowered to the Old World. 

Our enormous balances of trade with foreign nations is fast receding, 
and peoples who seek recuperation from war's wastes and bankruptcy, 
are expecting to sell to us to recuperate, because our people are the 
ablest to buy in all the world. One must admit the promise of a cheaper 
cost of living if Europe's cheaper-made merchandise is brought to our 
markets. But note the peril to labor! If we buy abroad, we will slacken 
production at home, and slackened production means diminished employ- 

121 



ment, and growing idleness and all attending disappointments. I want to 
cheapen the cost of living as much as any one in all the land, but I do not 
wish it cheapened by the processes of unemployment and lowered stand- 
ards of American labor. 

Factory Success, Your Success 

That is why I speak for my party's policy, on the one hand, and 
ask so earnestly for efficiency of production on the other. The latter 
is a practical plan of reducing cost without surrendering the high stand- 
ard of wage. Pray, do not ever believe you are injuring yourself by giving 
full return for your employment. The call is for maximum production, 
and factory success is your success. Do not scale down to the inefficient 
and incapable, let us train up and build up to the heights of the efficient. 

What is the big inspiration in Mfe? The natural desire to excel. 
Why do we all applaud Babe Ruth? Because he has batted out more 
home runs in a season than any ball player on earth. If you were going 
to play ball, you wouldn't try to bat at 150 or 200, you would rather be 
a Babe Ruth. But men say that's different from the humdrum of toil. 
Well, that's why I am arguing the end of humdrum toil by striving for 
the heights. The workman who performs his tasks better than another 
has satisfaction in his soul, and he will not long escape the notice that 
brings him advancement. 

To Reduce Living Cost 

Many other things will help to reduce living cost. I want to see 
profiteering isolated and punished. It is a moral wrong and an economic 
robbery. The one who practices profiteering is false to business and 
to country. I do not know of a deadlier foe to our common country, 
because he creates the unrest that threatens from within and empha- 
sizes the appeal to class. 

Reduced cost of government will help, and we can reduce cost of gov- 
ernment by quitting the play of politics with the nation's bread and 
butter. Stage assaults on profiteering, mostly dealing with petty of- 
fenders, do not deeply impress the country, and sugar agreements which 
add a billion to our sugar bills for a year do not indicate a know-how 
which entitles the bunglers to hold their jobs. 

I have not come to you today with a speech of promises. I can not 
pledge you the impossible, and do not mean to suggest the impractical. 
I can only preach the gospel of understanding practically applied. I can 
only tell you that in life among you here, or in life of great responsi- 
bility, I am interested in your good fortunes in common with all the 
people. In public service, I have always been ready to hear the appeal 
of all Americans, and labor will find an every-ready period to be heard, 
not for labor alone, but for the good of all our people. We can not pros- 

122 



per one group and imperil another. We can not have, we must not have, 
a menacing class consciousness. When we look each other in the face, 
soberly contemplating the great web of American life, we see that the 
good of one is the fortune of all . 

System All Right 

Our system is all right, it is the judgment of the ages, and here in 
America we have wrought the supreme achievement. There are abuses, 
perhaps there ever will be. Greed develops and robbery breaks out 
amid all great processions. Our business is to strike at greed, and outlaw 
robbery, and correct the abuses, without destroying the temple in which 
we abide. 

I do not think we can fabricate the perfect world, but we can, and 
we mean to, make it better from day to day and year to year. I do 
not blow you a bubble of imaginary equality of men or women, but I do 
proclaim equality of opportunity, proved in America and making 
America the best land of hope in all the world. The fair chance is here. 
It isn't in a particular craft, it isn't alone in the closed shop, it isn't in 
the offerings of the law, it isn't in the revolutionary proposals of those 
who threaten destruction in return for liberty's blessings. It is in honest 
endeavor, in thrift, in lofty aspiration, and a resolute determination to 
do, and to get on in the world. 

Believe in Unionism 

I believe in unionism, I believe in collective bargaining, I believe the 
two have combined to speed labor toward its just rewards. But I do 
not believe in labor's domination of business or government any more 
than I believe that capital shall dominate. We had our time at that, 
and we learned the danger and ended it. We do not want to substitute 
one class for another, we want to put an end to classes. 

We live in an era of collective endeavor. Capital led the way, and 
labor's organization was not only natural, but necessary. It has done 
more than serve its membership, it has riveted the thoughtful attention 
of America to social justice and brought the fruits thereof. 
Advancement of Labor's Cause 

I hold that the advancement of labor's cause in America challenges 
all the world. W^e have made, of course, a few thousand millionaires, 
but we made millions of self-reliant, advancing, creative Americans. The 
luxury of yesterday is the accepted necessity of today. I struggled to 
own a motor car after I had been an employer for twenty years, and 
workmen nowadays drive to their tasks at thirty, without realizing the 
transformation. The progress is the miracle of American opportunity. I 
want to hold to fundamentals, strike at any developing inequality and 
halt assault on our system, then go on to greater things. The way is 

123 



open. Opportunity is calling, and harmonized capital and labor and 
management will clear the waiting paths, and individual resolution, the 
heritage of American freedom, will speed us on. If we only hold fast to 
the fundamentals, the pride of today may be a greater glory tomorrow, 
and ultimately we shall approach that combination of achievement and 
happiness for all men which is the divine plan for the triumphs of earth 
and life and human endeavor. 



A SPEECH BY SENATOR WARREN G. HARDING 

TO CITIZENS OF HUNTINGTON, INDIANA, 

DELIVERED FROM SPECIAL TRAIN 

WHILE ENROUTE TO ST. PAUL, 

MINN., SEPTEMBER 7, 1920 

Let me say to you, my fellow countrymen, it is a very great compli- 
ment to have you come down to greet us in passing and I very gladly 
return your greeting. If it were possible in our hurried schedule to stop 
and meet you all personally that would be an added pleasure. 

I take it that you are interested alike in the welfare of our common 
country, but I know human nature well enough to know how natural it 
is to be interested in the things that specifically and more particularly 
concern us as individuals. And I happen to know Huntington. We are 
neighbors. We are linked by the Erie Railroad, and I take it that you 
residents of this great railroad center, with hundreds of men in the rail- 
way employment and active in the citizenship of this community, are 
more interested in the railway question than any other. But I would not 
talk to you solely as railway workers or as fellow citizens interested in the 
railway problem because we are interested in the good fortunes of Amer- 
ica, and the railways of this land are the nerve lines by which we get our 
energies, through which we are kept in communication, by whose trans- 
portation our industries and our farms are made to prosper, by whose 
connections we are kept in touch with one another, and America becomes 
one people. And so I want to say to you all, and the railway workers 
particularly, that the Congress of the United States in dealing with the 
railway problem did the best it knew how for the good of our common 
country. I voted for the Esch-Cummins Bill ; and I want to say to you 
railway workers that time is going to prove it to be the most beneficial 
piece of legislation for the promotion of your welfare that was ever put 
on the statute books of the country. 

124 



The country was facing the problem of the return of the railways to 
their owners, just as it ought to return to any man that which belongs 
to him when taken for the service of the government in war. The rail- 
ways had cost the country approximately a billion dollars under govern- 
ment operation; they have cost almost half as much in the transition 
period. When we handed them back we did two fine things; but nobody 
ever tells about one of them. On the one hand, we guaranteed the rail- 
roads five and a half per cent earnings so that they could finance them- 
selves. The government had allowed the properties to deteriorate until 
six hundred million dollars are needed this year to even half way approx- 
imate the ser\'ice the country requires; and a billion dollars more in new 
equipment will be needed next year. But the government only guaran- 
teed to the owners a return of five and a half per cent for the six months' 
transition period. What did the government do for the men at the same 
time? Contemplating the possible paralysis and economies, the govern- 
ment also guaranteed that there should be no diminution in wages during 
the same time. 

But that is not the big thing. The big thing in the bill is that the 
government has written Labor's Bill of Rights, so that labor shall have 
instant, exact and ample justice in public service. And I tell you, men 
and women, that is the greatest forward step taken by any government 
in the world — instant, exact justice, upon which our whole civilization 
is founded. I hope and believe it leads the way to the ultimate solution 
of all industrial conflicts. 



125 



A SPEECH BY SENATOR WARREN G. HARDING 

TO CITIZENS OF DEERFIELD, ILLINOIS, 

WHILE ENROUTE TO MINNEAPOLIS, 

MINN., SEPTEMBER 7, 1920 

It is mighty nice of you to come out and greet us in this informal way. 
It has been a very great pleasure indeed to grasp you by the hand and 
know you face to face. You know that is the gospel I am preaching this 
year for the people of the United States, that is a better understanding 
of our mutuality of interest in everything done in this country. 

I have been thinking today of the wonderful development of the 
Northwest. We take things so readily for granted that we never stop to 
think what made us what we are. This section of the country in its de- 
velopment is not yet a century old, and in this brief time we have been 
building this wonderful country of ours, we have been working to the 
perfection of a new civilization and a habitation and a condition which 
are the pride of all Americans. And it is a very wonderful thing to con- 
template how much we have accomplished in less than a century; and 
when you stop to think about it, it is all worked out with patience and 
continued endeavor in the right direction. Nothing great is brought a- 
bout by the wave of one's hand. You cannot have miracles in the develop- 
ment of a country, and yet in this wonderful land of ours, with the Con- 
stitution only a hundred and thirty-three years old and our Western 
civilization less than a century, we have outstripped every other civiliza- 
tion in the world. That is a tribute to American accomplishment. And 
when I look back upon it, I find myself asking — Why must we be so im- 
patient with the continual working out of the processes of human ad- 
vancement? It takes time and understanding and an abiding faith to do 
this. So I want you all to have faith in this country of ours. 

I know that the heart of America is right, and I know just as sure as 
I am standing before you if we go on in understanding and in complete 
confidence, we of America are going to work out the finest destiny of any 
people in all the world. 

In looking at this audience of my fellow countrymen, I am reminded 
of the thought, which has oftentimes been in my mind, that there is none 
to which I more delight to talk than that which can be assembled in a 
village community like yours. I do not tell you that because I am here ; 
I tell you that because I grew up in a village of six hundred, and I know 
something of the democracy — not democratic partyism but democracy 
in the broad sense — I know something of the democracy, of the simpli- 

126 



city, of the confidence — aye, better yet, of the reverence for government, 
and the fidelity to law and its enforcement, as it exists in the small com- 
munity. I do not believe that anywhere in the world there is so perfect 
a democracy as in the village. You know in the village we know every- 
body else's business. I grew up in such a community, and I have often 
referred to it as a fine illustration of the opportunities of American life. 

There is no social strata or society requirement in the village. About 
everybody starts equal. And in the village where I was born the black- 
smith's son and the cobbler's son and the minister's son and the store- 
keeper's son all had just the same chance in the opportunities of this 
America of ours. I wonder if it would interest you if I told you about 
what happened to some of the boys with whom I went to school? I like 
to refer to it because it is the finest proof in the world of the equality of 
American opportunity to the sons of this Republic. In the class when 
I was a boy there was Ralph. Well, Ralph was a bruiser among the boys 
and I would have picked him out for a prize-fighter. I looked him up. 
I had not seen him for thirty years, and instead of finding him a pugilistic- 
ally inclined citizen, I found him at the head of the bank in the village 
where we grew up, as peaceful and able as any man in the community. 
Then there was Wheeler. If there was any boy in our crowd who started 
with greater advantage in money, he was the fellow. He had inherited 
three thousand dollars — ^and that was an awful amount of money in 
those days. But Wheeler went the wrong way, and came to failure. 
Then there was Frank. Frank was the village carpenter's son ; but Frank 
today is one of the great captains of industry in Chicago, and before the 
World War advanced salaries and compensation, he was getting $25,000 
a year. A Village Boy! Then there was Ed, the cobbler's son. He wanted 
to be a geologist. He had once heard a geologist lecture. So he started 
to study geology, and in order to study to more advantage, because his 
father was not able to send him to college he became a Pullman car con- 
ductor, to study as he worked. What do you think became of Ed, as- 
piring to become a geologist? Ed turned out to be a preacher and he is a 
great preacher this day. And so I might run on — but I must tell you 
about another one. Let us say that his name was Charlie. He was the 
local grocer's son. Well, you would not have thought he had any special 
advantage but his father loved him and sent him to college. He is one of 
the great lawyers of Ohio today and he measures his wealth in large fig- 
ures and he never cheated anybody out of a cent. Then there was, let 
us say, Henry, Henry was the brightest boy of the class. The teacher 
always pointed him out as the pride of the school. He was the one to 
whom we always had to look as an example of youthful brilliancy in the 
village. We were all envious of him. What do you suppose became of 

127 



this brightest luminary of them all? I found him in a village, the janitor 
of his lodge, and in spite of his less important achievements he was the 
happiest one of the lot. This brings to mind a little bit of homely phil- 
osophy. What is the greatest thing in life, my countrymen? Happiness. 
And there is more happiness in the American village than any other place 
on the face of the earth. 

So I like to talk to you, my countrymen, and preach the gospel of 
understanding in America, the utter abolition of class and every thought 
of it ; the maintenance of American institutions, the things we have in- 
herited, and above all else continued freedom for the United States of 
America, without dictation or direction from anybody else in all the 
world. 



SPEECH OF ACCEPTANCE BY SENATOR WAR- 

REN G. HARDING UPON BEING PRESENTED 

WITH PAINTING ENTITLED "THE 

RIVER," AT ARTS BUILDING, MIN- 

NESOTA STATE FAIR, SEPTEM- 

BER 8, 1920 

Mr. Roe, Ladies and Gentlemen : I am very happy to accept this most 
pleasant gift, and since it comes from you I am going to leave to you to 
decide where it is to be exhibited. I was very deeply impressed by the 
remarks of Mr. Roe relating to the development of Art in this wonderful 
country, and it suggests to me the remark that nothing so signally testi- 
fies to the progress of America and the advance of human kind as does 
the Association of Art with the struggle, the practical struggle for sub- 
sistence. And I congratulate you as fellow countrymen that in America, 
where we are less than a hundred years old in our development, we are 
now having, with agricultural progress, time, interest, and concern, for 
the development of art, which adds to the refinement and enjoyment of 
the practical life. 

I want to go one step further, I want to find not only art encouraged 
and developed in the general progress of every community throughout 
the nation, but I want to reach that stage of mutuality of interest and 
common advancement where there is just as much art on the American 
farm and in the American wage earners' home as there is in the more 
fortunate or better compensated of our people. That is the ideal civiliza- 
tion. I don't know why there shouldn't be just as much of that in the 

128 



farm home as in the palace of the cities. Why! There is infinitely more 
inspiration on the American farm. There are the fields and the rivers and 
the woods; there is the atmosphere of the out-of-doors, and if there is any 
inspiration in the world to the heights of art, it is in the out-door life of 
this splendid Republic of ours. And in the house in which I am speaking 
let me express the hope for that continuing development and advancing 
civilization which brings an abundance of art, a fullness of education and 
the ultimate enjoyment of all these things to all Americans — that is what 
I want for my fellow Americans. 



A SPEECH BY SENATOR WARREN G. HARDING 

DELIVERED AT MINNESOTA STATE FAIR 

SEPTEMBER 8, 1920 

Fellow-Citizens of Minnesota — It is a matter of very great satisfac- 
tion and a very particular interest to me to join with you in this nota- 
ble exhibition of the agricultural industry of your wonderful state. 
I come to you with a common interest and a very common concern 
for the welfare of our country. While it is in my thought to speak 
to you specifically concerning agriculture, I want to so convey my 
thought as to have it known that I am thinking not of the welfare 
alone of those engaged in agriculture, but the welfare of agriculture 
as it relates to the good fortunes of the United States of America. I 
very much deplore the present-day tendency to appeal to the particular 
group in American activities. It has become a very common practice 
to make one address to those who constitute the ranks of labor, another 
to those who make up the great farming community and still another 
to the manufacturing world and its associates in commerce, and to 
other groups of less importance. There is a very natural and a very 
genuine interest in each and every one, but the utterance of a political 
party nominee ought, in every instance, to be inspired by a purpose 
to serve our common country. If America is to go on and come to 
the heights of achievement, we must of necessity be "all for one and one 
for all." 

That Dollar Wheat Tale 

Let me say, in passing, I hope it is entirely seemly to remind you 
that no public man, particularly no public servant from the great wheat- 
raising state of Ohio, would dare to think, much less to say, he believed 
in dollar wheat amid the price wildness which the world is contemplat- 
ing today. I speak of it, because we are getting acquainted today and I 

129 



do not mean to have any misunderstanding between you and me, and 
I will not be grossly and unfairly misrepresented. 

I have helped to cut sixty-cent wheat, I have known it to sell at 
forty cents. I have followed the cradle, and sweated behind the reaper 
when binding was a cross to bear, and I know I spoke the truth when 
I said, some years ago, that Ohio farmers, in the normal days before 
the war, rejoiced to raise dollar wheat. That statement had no reference 
to wartime; none to the present after-war period. Conditions, as well 
as prices, have changed since I made that perfectly natural and truthful 
statement, and other great and important changes are in contemplation, 
and no misrepresentation is necessary to bring them about. 

A good many years ago a Chinese philosopher uttered a profound 
truth when he said: "The well-being of a people is like a tree; agricul- 
ture is its root, manufacture and commerce are its branches and its life; 
if the root is injured the leaves fall, the branches break and the tree 
dies." 

Cause for Concern 

It may seem strange to many good people that at this particular 
time any one should quote this saying of a wise old Chinese. Never 
in all our history have prices of farm products ruled so high, meas- 
ured in dollars, as during the past four years. Farm land in the great 
surplus-producing states has advanced to unheard-of prices, with 
every indication that, but for the tight money conditions, it would go 
still higher. Apparently the farmers of the land are enjoying unpre- 
cedented prosperity. Why then, even by implication, suggest that some- 
thing may be wrong with our agriculture, and that the trouble may 
be communicated to our manufactures and commerce? People in the cities 
are disposed to think that if there is anything wrong it is in the cities 
where food is selling at such high prices, and not in the country where 
the food is produced. But both farm and city students of national prob- 
lems see in the present agricultural situation certain conditions which 
give cause for real concern to every lover of his country. 

Intelligent Discussion 

An intelligent discussion of our agriculture at the present time must 
take note of what has happened since the middle of the last century. At 
that time a fine rural civilization had been built up east of the Mississippi 
River, with Ohio in the heart of the corn belt and standing in about the 
same relation to the agriculture of that day that Iowa stands today. 
The agricultural frontier had been pushed beyond the Mississippi, and 
abundant food was being raised to support the growing industrial life 
of the East. 

Then came the civil war, and following it the great western migra- 

130 



tion into the fertile, open plains of what is now the Central West. 
Through the homestead law the government gave a farm of the richest 
land in the world to every man who wanted one. Railroads were built, 
the prairies were plowed up, and almost over night the agricultural pro- 
duction of the United States increased by fifty per cent. Grains were 
produced and sold at the bare cost of utilizing the soil, and the farmers 
of the older states to the east were smothered by this flood of cheap 
grain. The only thing that could be done with this super-abundance 
of food was to build cities out of it. And great cities we did build, not 
only in the United States, but across the seas. The world has never seen, 
and probably may never again see, such a terrific impulse toward city 
building on a vast scale as that which was given by the over-production 
of farm products during the latter part of the nineteenth century and the 
first few years of the twentieth. 

Farm-Grown Imports Increase 
What are ordinary dull statistics will strikingly illumine the situation 
which I have been trying to convey. In the decade from 1900 to 1910 the 
city population of the United States increased thirty-five per cent, while 
the rural population increased only eleven per cent. The number of 
farm utililities probably increased less, but we do know officially that 
the city population increased more than three times as rapidly as the 
rural population. The figures are not yet complete for the decade ending 
this year, but sufficient reports have been published to give us a very 
dependable estimate. The indications are that no increase will be 
shown in the number of farms and no increase in strictly farm popula- 
tion. In all probability, dating from 1920, we shall estimate our farm 
population as thirty per cent of the whole while the urban population 
will make up the other seventy per cent. 

Another interesting fact to reveal the danger in changing conditions. 
Only a few decades ago, indeed from the very beginning, the exports of 
the United States were soil-grown or farm-produced materials. On the 
other hand, most of our imports were manufactured articles. In the 
last half century, year after year the exports of farm-grown products 
have decreased — except during the World War — and exports of manu- 
factured products have increased until again we are rapidly reaching 
the zero mark from the standpoint of agricultural supplies to the world. 
Each year our imports show larger and larger quantities of farm-grown 
products and the time is almost with us when the imports of farm-grown 
products will exceed the exports, in short, when our farm population 
will not be supplying the products necessary for our own people. 

Forced to Grinding Economy 
The farmer suffered during this changing period. Over-production 

131 



means low prices, and he over-produced with a vengeance, though it 
was an inevitable part of the scheme of American development. He was 
obliged to practice grinding economy, and to live as far as possible 
from his own acres. He did live essentially within his own productivity, 
and the farm was the factory for the agricultural home. "Land poor" 
was a common expression in the farming country. Many, and especially 
the ambitious boys, abandoned the farms and added themselves to 
the growing population of the cities, driven by the hardships of the farm 
and attracted by the greater rewards offered by the cities. 

By 1905, it was becoming apparent that the consuming power of 
the cities and industrial centers would soon be large enough to equalize 
the producing power of the farms. Prices of farm products began to 
advance, and with this advance came an increase in the price of farm 
land. Improved machinery increased the number of acres one man could 
farm, thereby decreasing his cost of production! The expression "farm 
poor" was no longer heard. Men who had not secured farms of their 
own began to seek them, and the march to the West and Northwest was 
resumed. Irrigation projects were started and the homestead law made 
more liberal in order to make the settlement of the semi-arid country 
more attractive. New areas of government land were opened for entry. 
Demand for Increased Production 

In the meantime, the consuming public had become concerned over 
the prospect of paying higher prices for foodstuffs. Cities and industrial 
centers had been built up on ridiculously cheap food, indeed, their 
building was the first essential in developing farm values. Then the 
increase in price called for readjustment and required wage advances. 
Organizations of city business men began to take an interest in farm 
affairs and preach the duty of increased production. The "Back to 
the Land" cry began to be heard. Increased appropriations by Congress 
and by state legislatures were made to stimulate better methods of farm- 
ing and thus increase production in hope of keeping down food prices. 
The rural uplift movement was started with the thought that, by 
making conditions on the farm more attractive, the drift from the 
farm to the city might be checked. The work of agricultural colleges 
was strengthened by the addition of extension departments, the function 
of which is to take the teaching of better methods of farming and stock- 
growing into the counties and smaller communities, and especially to 
stimulate an interest in farming among the boys and girls. All sorts 
of efforts were made to check the drift from the farm to the city, and 
to maintain farm production. 

In truth, here in America, farming came to that stage where it 
ceased to be a mere struggle for sustenance, and it found its place amid 

132 



i 



the competition for achievement. It was no longer the inherently direc- 
ted operation, with the soil for restricted living, but became a commer- 
cial, scientific operation with Mother Nature, to share in the accomplish- 
ments of a modern life, and know a participation in modern rewards. 

Cry for Food Intensified 
Then came the World War which accelerated greatly the movement 
which was already under full headway. The cry for food which came 
from the nations across the sea caused further advances in prices of 
farm products, as well as in prices of farm land, and both profits and 
patriotism stimulated production. But with this increased demand for 
the products of the farm came also an increased demand for the pro- 
ducts of our factories and other industrial enterprises, resulting in 
higher wages, and the city continued to pull from the farm large numbers 
of young men who did not have farms of their own and could see no 
prospect of getting them, and who thought they could see in the city 
better wages and greater opportunities for advancement, as well as 
more attractive living conditions. If the facts were available it would 
be found, probably during the period from 1905 to 1917, the time of our 
entrance into the war, the drift from the farm to the city continued with 
little abatement notwithstanding the more hopeful conditions on the farm. 

Splendid Part of Farmers 
The splendid part played by the farmers of the nation during the war 
probably never will be understood or fully appreciated by our people. 
More than twenty-five per cent of all our fighting men came from the 
farms, and after sending their sons to the camps, the fathers and mothers, 
with the help of the younger children, turned to and produced more 
food than was ever before produced in the history of the world in the 
same time and from the same area of land. Their working days were 
measured not by the clock, but by the number of daylight hours. They 
took to themselves the responsibility of feeding not only our own people, 
but also our allies across the sea. In more ways than one, our farmers 
made the war their war, and counted no sacrifice too great to help fight 
it through to a successful finish. The story of what they did, written by 
some one who understands it, will furnish one of the most glorious 
chapters in American history. One thing I may say — in every American 
conflict, from the revolution for independence to the World War for 
maintained rights, the farmer has been 100 per cent American and ready 
for every sacrifice. 

Certain Results of Conditions 
Without speaking at length of farm production and prices during 
the war, it is necessary to note certain results, if we are to deal un- 
derstandingly with the agricultural situation at the present time, and 

133 



speak intelligently of a future policy. War conditions put a premium 
on grain growing at the expense of live stock production. As a conse- 
quence, many stock producers and feeders have suffered heavy and, in 
some cases, ruinous losses. If this condition should continue, we are 
in danger, in the near future, of having to pay very high prices for 
our meats. 

For two outstanding reasons the maintenance of a normal balance 
between live stock and grain production is a matter of national con- 
cern. One is that we are a meat-eating people, and should have a fairly 
uniform supply at a reasonable price. Conditions which either greatly 
stimulate or greatly discourage live stock production result in prices 
altogether too high for the average consuming public or altogether too 
low for the producer. The other is that the over-stimulation of grain 
production depletes the fertility of our land, which is our greatest national 
asset, and results in a greater supply than can be consumed at a price 
profitable to the producer, and finally to widespread agricultural distress 
from which all of our people suffer. As a reconstruction measure, therefore, 
our government should do everything in its power to restore the normal 
balance between live stock and grain production, and thus encourage the 
prompt return to that system of diversified farming by which alone 
we can maintain our soil fertility. This is a matter of immediate im- 
portance to all of our people. 

Hard to Forecast 

No one can forecast with certainty the trend of prices of farm prod- 
ucts during the next two or three years. Recovery from a world crisis 
such as we have experienced is slow, inevitably. It is like the human 
convalescence from a long and dangerous illness. Our relations with the 
world-at-large are such that important happenings in other lands have a 
marked effect upon conditions here at home. Order must be restored, 
industries rebuilt, devastated lands reclaimed, transportation re-estab- 
lished, the vast armies re-absorbed in the occupations of normal life. The 
near future promises to be a period of uncertainty for the farmer as well 
as for the men engaged in industrial enterprises. America has no greater 
problem than returning securely to the normal, onward road again. 
This isn't looking backward — it is a forward look to stability and security. 

It must be evident, however, to any one who has given the matter 
even superficial consideration, that we have now come to the end of the 
long period of agricultural exploitation in the United States. No longer 
are there great and easy and awaiting areas of fertile land awaiting the 
land hungry. We have now under the plow practically all of our easily- 
tillable land, though idle areas await reclamation and development by 
that genius and determination which ever have made nature respond to 

134 



human needs. Additions of consequence, which we may make to our 
farming area, from this time on, must come by putting water on the 
dry lands of the arid and semi-arid country, or by taking water off of 
the swamp lands, of which we have large areas in some sections, or by 
digging the stumps out of the cut-over timber lands of the North and 
South. There are of course, large possibilities in intensive farming, in 
that land thrift which admits of neither waste nor neglect, and in ever- 
improving methods, which must be as inspiring to agricultural life as 
to the professions or to commercial leadership. I want a soul in farming, 
to set aglow the most independent and self-respecting activity in all the 

world. 

A Definite Policy 

The time has come when, as a nation, we must determine upon a 
definite agricultural policy. We must decide whether we shall under- 
take to make of the United States a self-sustaining nation — which means 
that we shall grow within our own boundries all of the staple food 
products needed to maintain the highest type of civilization — or whether 
we shall continue to ext)loit our agricultural resources for the benefit 
of our industrial and commercial life, and leave to posterity the task of 
finding food enough, by strong-arm methods, if necessary, to suipport 
the coming hiindreds of millions. I believe in the self-sustaining, indepen- 
dent, self-reliant nation, agriculturally, industrially and politically. We 
are then the guarantors of our own security and are equal to the task. 

Other Alternative an Unhappy One 

If we should unhappily choose the course of industrial and commercial 
promotion at the expense of agriculture, cities will continue to grow at 
the expense of the rural community, agriculture will inevitably break 
down and finally destroy the finest rural civilization, with the greatest 
possibilities, the world has ever seen. Decreased farm production 
will make dear food and we shall be obliged to send our ships to far- 
away nations in search of cheap foodstuffs, the importation of which is 
sure to intensify agricultural discouragement and distress at home. 
Ultimately there will come the same fatal break-down, and from the same 
causes, which has destroyed the great civilizations of centuries past. 

If, on the other hand, we shall determine to build up here a self- 
sustaining nation — and what lover of his country can make a different 
choice? — then we must at once set about the development of a system of 
agriculture which will enable us to feed our people abundantly, with 
some to spare for export in years of plenty, and at prices which will in- 
sure to the farmer and his family both financial rewards and educational, 
social and religious living conditions fairly comparable to those offered 
by the cities. A sound system of agriculture can not be maintained 

135 



on any other basis. Anything short of a fair return upon invested capital 
and a fair wage for the labor which goes into the crops, and enough 
in addition to enable the farmer to maintain the fertility of his soil, and 
insure against natural hazards will drive large numbers of farmers to the 
cities. 

A Frank Recognition Necessary 

A frank recognition by all of our people of this fundamental truth is 
necessary, if we are successfully to work out this great national prob- 
lem. It is a matter of even greater concern to the people of the cities 
than to the farmer and the farm community. If we can not by pains- 
taking study and wise statesmanship arrive at such understanding and 
application of economic laws as will enable us to bring about a fair bal- 
ance between our urban and rural industries, bringing prosperity to 
both and permitting neither to fatten at the expense of the other, we can 
not hope for concord, and without concord there is no assurance for the 
future. 

Heretofore the farmer has been an individualist. Living a some- 
what isolated life and being compelled to work long hours, it has not 
been easy for him to gather with his fellows. He has not had a ready 
means of defense against the strong organizations of both capital and 
labor, which in their own interest have at times imposed unfair condi- 
tions upon him. It is true that at times, during the past fifty years, 
there have been temporary farmer organizations brought together to 
combat some unusually burdensome condition, but usually breaking down 
when the emergency has passed. 

Organization Developing 

But of late years there have sprung up farmer organizations of 
a quite different sort — organizations with a very large membership, with 
an aggressive and intelligent leadership, and with a way of raising what- 
ever funds they may find necessary to promote the interest of their 
members. The leaders of these organizations are learning rapidly how 
to adapt to their work the methods which business men and working 
men have found successful in furthering their own interests. The fruit 
growers of the western coast have become so strong that they are now 
able not only to do away with many of the expenses heretofore paid to 
others, but also to influence the price of their products. The grain grow- 
ers of the West and Northwest have become strong enough to bring about 
many changes they desired in the marketing of their crops. The farmers 
of the corn belt states are rapidly perfecting the most powerful organiza- 
tion of farmers ever known in this country. All of these are natural devel- 
opments in the evolving change of relationship and the modern com- 
plexities of productivity and exchange. 

136 



Our Business Not To Destroy 

It is more than conceivable, it is apparent, that we are able to deal 
more wisely and more justly with our agriculture than we have in the 
past. Unless we do deal more fairly there may come a conflict between 
the organized farmers in the surplus-producing states and those who 
insist on buying their crops below production costs. We have wit- 
nessed the restricted production of manufactures and of labor, but we 
have not yet experienced the intentionally restricted production of 
foodstuffs. Let us hope we never may. It is our business to produce and 
conserve, not to deny, deprive or destroy. 

I have no thought of suggesting that the government should work 
out an elaborate system of agriculture and then try to impose it on the 
farmers of the country. That would be utterly repugnant to American 
ideals. Government paternalism, whether applied to agriculture or to 
any other of our great national industries, would stifle ambition, impair 
efficiency, lessen production and make us a nation of dependent in- 
competents. The farmer requires no special favors at the hands of the 
government. All he needs is a fair chance and just such consideration for 
agriculture as we ought to give to a basic industry, and ever seek to 
promote for our common good. 

Some of the things which ought to be done, if we are to put our 
agriculture on a sound foundation, have been mentioned in the nation- 
al platform of the party to whose pledges I am committed. 

Farm Representation 

First, the need of farm representation in larger governmental affairs 
is recognized. During the past seven years the right of agriculture to a 
voice in government administration has been practically ignored, and, at 
times the farmer has suffered grievously as a result. The farmer has 
a vital interest in our trade relations with other countries, in the ad- 
ministration of our financial policies, and in many of the larger activities 
of the government. His interests must be safeguarded by men who 
understand his needs, he must be actually and practically represented. 

Second, the right of farmers to form co-operative associations for 
the marketing of their products must be granted. The concert of agri- 
culture is as essential to farms as a similar concert of action is to factories. 
A prosperous agriculture demands not only efficiency in production, but 
efficiency in marketing. Through co-operative associations the route 
between the producer and the consumer can and must be shortened. 
Wasteful effort can and must be avoided. Unnecessary expense can and 
must be eliminated. It is to the advantage of all of our people that every 
possible improvement be made in our methods of getting the products of 
our farms into the hands of the people who consume them. The legiti- 

137 



mate functions of the middleman may continue to be performed, by 
private enterprise, under conditions where the middleman is necessary 
and gives his skill to our joint welfare. The parasite in distribution who 
preys on both producer and consumer must no longer sap the vitality of 
this fundamental life. 

Scientific Study 

Third, the Republican party pledges itself to a scientific study of 
agricultural prices and farm production costs, both at home and abroad, 
with a view to reducing the frequency of abnormal fluctuations here. 
Stabilization will contribute to everybody's confidence. Farmers have 
complained bitterly of the frequent and violent fluctuations in prices 
of farm products, and especially in prices of live stock. They do not 
find fluctuations — such fluctuations — in the products of other indus- 
tries. In a general way prices of farm products must go up or down 
according to whether there is a plentiful crop or a short one. The farmer's 
raw materials are the fertility of the soil, the sunshine and the rain; 
and the size of his crops is measured by the supply of these raw mater- 
ials and the skill with which he makes use of them. He can not control 
his production and adjust it to the demand as can the manufacturer. 
But he can see no good reason why the prices of his products should 
fluctuate so violently from week to week, and sometimes from day to 
day. We must get a better understanding of the factors which influence 
agricultural prices, with a view to avoiding these violent fluctuations 
and bring about average prices, which shall bear a reasonable rela- 
tion to the cost of production. We do not offer any quack remedies in 
this matter, but we do pledge ourselves to make a thorough study of 
the disease, find out what causes it, and then apply the remedy which 
promises a cure. 

To Stop Price-Fixing 

Fouth, we promise to put an end to unnecessary price-fixing of farm 
products and to ill-considered efforts arbitrarily to reduce farm product 
prices. In times of national crisis, when there is a known scarcity of 
any necessary product, price control for the purpose of making a fair dis- 
tribution of the stores on hand may be both necessary and wise. But 
we know that there can be no repeal of natural laws — the eternal funda- 
mentals. The history of the last three thousand years records the folly 
of such efforts. If the price of any farm product, for example, is arbi- 
trarily fixed at a point which does not cover the cost of production, 
the farmer is compelled to reduce the production of that particular 
crop. This results in a shortage which in turn brings about higher prices 
than before, and thus intensifies the danger from which it was sought 
to escape. In times past, many nations have tried to hold down living 

138 



costs by arbitrarily fixing prices of farm products. All such efforts have 
failed, and have usually brought national disaster. 

Vain and Useless 

Government drives against food prices such as we have experienced 
during the past two years are equally vain and useless. The ostensible 
purpose of such drives is to reduce the price the consumer pays for food. 
The actual result is unjustly to depress for a time the prices the farmer 
receives for his grains and live stock, but with no appreciable reduction 
in the price the consumer pays. Such drives simply give the speculator 
and the profiteer additional opportunities to add to their exactions, 
while they add to the uncertainty and discouragement under which the 
farmer is laboring during this period of readjustment. 

Fifth, we favor the administration of the farm loan act, so as to help 
men who farm to secure farms of their own, and to give to them long- 
time credits needed to practice the best methods of diversified farming. 

We also favor the authorization of associations to provide the neces- 
sary machinery to furnish personal credit to the man, whether land 
owner or tenant, who is hampered for lack of working capital. The 
highest type of rural civilization is that in which the land is farmed by 
the men who own it. Unfortunately, as land increases in value, tenancy 
also increases. 

An Increasing Evil 

This has been true throughout history. At the present time prob- 
ably one-half of the high priced land in the corn belt states is farmed by 
men, who, because of lack of capital, find it necessary to rent. This 
increase in tenancy brings with it evils which are a real menace to na- 
tional welfare. The land owner, especially if he be a speculator who 
is holding for a profit through an advance in value, is concerned chiefly 
in securing the highest possible rent. The tenant who lacks sufficient 
working capital, and who too often is working under a short time lease, 
is forced to farm the land to the limit and rob it of its fertility in order 
to pay the rent. Thus we have a sort of conspiracy between the landlord 
and tenant to rob the soil upon which our national well-being and indeed 
our very existence depend. Amid such conditions, we have inefficient 
schools, broken-down churches, and a sadly-limited social life. We 
should therefore, concern ourselves not only in helping men to secure 
farms of their own, and in helping the tenant secure the working capital 
he needs to carry on the best methods of diversified farming, but we 
should work out a system of land leasing which, while doing full justice 
to both landlord and tenant, will at the same time conserve the fertility 
of the soil. 

139 



Transportation Systems 

Sixth, we do not longer recognize the right to speculative profit in the 
operation of our transportation systems, but we are pledged to restore 
them to the highest state of efificiency as quickly as possible. Agri- 
culture has suffered more severely than any other industry through 
the inefficient railroad service of the last two years. Many farmers have 
incurred disastrous losses through inability to market their grain and live 
stock. Such a condition must not be permitted to continue. We must 
bring about conditions which will give us prompt service at the lowest 
possible rates. 

Seventh, we are pledged to the revision of the tariff as soon as con- 
ditions shall make it necessary for the preservation of the home market 
for American labor, American agriculture and American industry. For 
a permanent good fortune all must have a common interest. If we are 
to build up a self-sustaining agriculture here at home, the farmer must 
be protected from unfair competition from those countries where 
agriculture is still being exploited and where the standards of living on 
the farm are much lower than here. We have asked for higher American 
standards, let us maintain them. 

To Protect All 

The farmers of the corn belt, for example, are already threatened with 
unfair competition from the Argentine, whose rich soil is being exploited 
in heedless fashion, and where the renters who farm it are living under 
conditions more miserable than the poorest tenants in the United 
States. In times past, duties on agricultural products were largely in 
the nature of paper tariffs, for we were a great surplus-producing nation. 
Now that consumption at home is so nearly reaching normal production, 
the American farmer has a right to insist that in our trade relations with 
other countries he shall have the same consideration that is accorded to 
other industries and we mean to protect them all. 

So long as America can produce the foods we need, I am in favor of 
buying from America first. It is this very preference which impels 
development and improvement. Whenever America can manufacture 
to meet American needs — and there is almost no limit to our genius and 
resources — I favor producing in America first. I commend American 
preference to American productive activities, because material good 
fortune is essential to our higher attainment, and linked indissolubly 
are farm and factory in the great economic fabric of American life. 

Our Agricultural Possibilities 

Under a sound system of agriculture, fostered and safeguarded by 
wise and fair administration of state and federal government, the farmers 
of the United States can feed our people for many centuries — perhaps 

140 



indefinitely. But we must understand conditions, and make a new 
appraisal of relationships, and square our actions to the great, under- 
lying foundation of all human endeavor. Farming is not an auxiliary, 
it is the main plant, and geared with it, inseparably, is every wheel of 
transportation and industry. America could go not on with a dis- 
satisfied farming people, and no nation is secure where land hunger 
abides. We need fewer land hogs who menace our future, and more 
fat hogs for ham and bacon. We need less beguilement in cultivating a 
quadrennial crop of votes and more consideration for farming as our 
basic industry. We need less appeal to class consciousness, and more res- 
olute intelligence in promptly solving our problems. We need rest and 
recuperation for a soil which has been worked out in agitation, and 
more and better harvests in the inviting fields of mutual understanding. 
We need less of grief about the ills which we may charge to the neglect 
of our own citizenship, and more confidence in just government, along 
with determination to make and hold it just. 

We need to contemplate the miracle of America in that understand- 
ing which enables us to appreciate that which made us what we are, 
and then resolve to cling fast to all that is good and go confidently on 
to great things. 

Fraits of Our Own Nationality 

We need to recall that America and its triumphs are not a gift to the 
world through paralyzing internationality, but the glories of the republic 
are the fruits of our own nationality and its inspirations — of freedom, of 
opportunity, of equal rights under the constitution, of Columbia offering 
the cup of American liberty to men thirsting to achieve and beckoning 
men to drink of the waters of our political life and be rewarded as they 
merit it. I think that the paths which brought us to the point where the 
world leadership might have been ours — as it might have been in 1919 — 
in the first century and a third of national life, ought to be the way to the 
answered aspirations of this great republic. I like to turn for reflection 
sometimes, because I get therein the needed assurance for the onward 
march of the morrow. Today we have contemplated American farming 
in the broadest possible way, have been reminded where we have been 
remiss; tomorrow we want to greet farmers of America in the freedom 
and fullness of farming productivity, impelled by the assurance that 
they are to have their full part in the rewards of righteous American 
?ictivity. 



141 



A SPEECH BY SENATOR WARREN G. HARDING 

TO LINCOLN CLUB, MINNEAPOLIS, MIN- 

NESOTA, SEPTEMBER 8, 1920 

Ladies and Gentlemen : After having experienced a really wonderful 
visit to the great Minnesota State Fair — concerning which I understand 
there is unanimity about its being the greatest state fair in the United 
States of America, there being no dispute at any rate in Minnesota — and 
having spoken on at least three different occasions, one does find himself 
incapable of answering all the calls for addresses. But I am very happy 
after this wonderful spirit which you have made manifest to somehow 
have an opportunity to say a friendly word to all of you and express the 
gratitude of a son of Ohio for this very cordial welcome from one of the 
sister states that was builded out of the great Northwest territory which 
marked really the beginning of America as a Nation. 

I am very glad to come and say to you as a fellow Republican, inter- 
ested in the same cause in which you are interested, that we have a com- 
mon project to carry out in this year 1920, and it is up to us Republicans 
to take the lead and ask everybody in the United States to help us save 
this country of ours. I do not mean that we possess all the patriotism in 
the land, but somehow I am growing more convinced from day to day 
that the Republican Party has the capacity for government, and in ad- 
dition to that I know that we are consecrated to the preservation of the 
American Constitution on which this Republic stands. 

I believe that representative popular government is the greatest 
agency ever devised by man for the promotion and preservation of free- 
dom. I think, my countrymen, that the Republican Party is the best 
political agency there is to represent it. 

There is one thing in which I take very much pride, my countrymen; 
as a member of the United States Senate I have been a participant in the 
preservation of American freedom. In the exercise of my official duties 
as a member of the Senate, carrying out my oath to support the American 
Constitution, I am one among many who prevented a barter of American 
nationality to submerge us in a paralyzing internationality and take 
away from us the one thing that has impelled us onward from the begin- 
ning of this Republic. I do not mean by that to say that we are opposed 
to what I conceive to be the American ideal of participation in the de- 
fense of humanity. I know the aspirations of the American heart. There 
isn't any hate in it for anybody in the world. Under our experience with 
popular government and the fraternity of states we want to play our 

142 



part in advancing the cause of mankind and promoting peace and pre- 
serving it throughout the world. But, by the eternals, we do not want 
somebody else to tell us what our duty is. We do not want somebody 
else to tell us when to go to war. We went into the war impelled by the 
American patriotic purpose to preserve American national rights. And 
we are going to preserve them. We are going to do our part in fellowship 
and fraternity with the world, but America still has the capacity and the 
conscience to determine for herself what this great Republic shall do to 
further the cause of humanity and of justice. And I am saying this to 
you, my countrymen, just as I would say it anywhere in the United 
States. 

By the way, that is one thing I like about the Republican Party. You 
can take off your hat anywhere in the United States and be a consistent 
Republican and you can open your lips and speak for the Republican 
Party to any citizenship anywhere in America. We do not talk one thing 
to one group and something else to another group ; we talk to the citizen- 
ship of the United States of America always. 

Oh, there is so much for the Republican Party to do. Things have 
been going badly for about seven years and a half. We have drifted from 
representative popular government to autocratic dictatorial personal gov- 
ernment, and we want to put an end to it. While thinking about democ- 
racy and talking much about it let us not forget that we have a work to 
do to wrest the government from the control of a bureaucracy. We ought 
to put an end to bureaucracy in the United States and restore once more 
the freedom that we inherited from the founding fathers. If I am elected 
to the Presidency, I promise you one thing sure — the restoration of rep- 
resentative government, with Congress functioning, with the Executive 
jealous of his powers but asking no more than the Constitution gives. 
And America once more not following the paths of dictation but in de- 
liberation, reconsecrated to the preservation of the inheritance of the 
fathers, once more devoted to the Constitution, confident that in the 
freedom of America, with our high place in the world, we have only to 
pursue the natural and normal way to go on to the fulfillment of the part 
of the greatest republic in the world. I want that for our common coun- 
try, and I pledge you, my countrymen of the Northwest, if this enter- 
prise succeeds and the Republicans control once more the Congress and 
Administration we are going to get back on the main right road again 
and stay there for all time to come. 



143 



A SPEECH BY SENATOR WARREN G. HARDING 

TO COLORED DELEGATIONS, MARION, 

OHIO, SEPTEMBER 10, 1920 

Americans: I greet you as workers in the cause of a noble religious 
purpose, and I shall address you, insofar as I am able to do so without 
thought of my position as a candidate of a party for high political office, 
and with my interest centered upon you, upon your aspirations, and 
upon the contribution of your people to America. I will center my in- 
terest also upon the contribution of America to your people and upon 
the justice which, in America, must never relax vigilance, not to create 
an equality that is worth nothing if it be not earned, but an equal oppor- 
tunity for all men and women to achieve and hold the full recognition 
of their own merit, capacity and worth. 

Too much doctrine based upon another principle has been loosed up- 
on a war-worn world, abroad, particularly in Russia. There has grown 
up the idea that by some impossible magic, a government can give out 
a bounty by the mere fact of having liberty and equality written over 
its door, and that citizenship need make no deposits in the bank of com- 
mon weal in order to write checks upon that bank. Here at home — we 
have had too much encouragement given to the idea that a government 
is a something-for-nothing institution. But I say that citizenship is not 
based upon what one can get, but that it is based upon what one gives. 
I say — and I wish that I could speak through you to all Americans — 
'♦Let's Serve!" 

Under that slogan of good citizenship there is no reason why you 
should not hold your heads high. You, who are assembled today, and 
your race in America, have the good sense, as all thoughtful Americans 
have, to know that it is only in a country where merit, capacity, and 
worth of men and women are recognized and rewarded, that merit, capa- 
city, and worth are developed. You, and I, and good Americans, of what- 
ever color, blood or creed, know that the aspiration of all men is equal 
opportunity to create recognition of differences between themselves, and 
that no injustice known to men can be greater than that of the tyranny 
and autocracy that labels itself Democracy, or Bolshevism, or Prole- 
tariat, and enslaves all men and all their ambitions and all their freedom 
with the iron hand of mediocrity. The American negro has the good 
sense to know this truth, has the good sense and clear head and brave 
heart to live it and I, assuming to speak a truth which America ought to 
know, proclaim it to all the world that he has met the test and did not 
and will not fail America. 

144 



I proclaim more ; I assert to all the world that America has not, and 
will not fail the American negro. 

If there are those who doubt me let them look to the record — the 
record of the colored race in American citizenship, and the record of 
America in giving opportunity. 

Your very presence in assembly, coming from great organizations 
dedicated to high religious purposes, is enough to cause any man to give 
recognition in his heart to the great contribution to American citizenship 
which is found in the capacity for deep religious faith among people of 
your blood. America needs the deep religious faith. She needs it whether 
it comes from Catholic, Jew, or Protestant. She needs it in her citizen- 
ship, and I recognize that the best of America is our spiritual life and not 
our material possessions, and that if America ever lets her spiritual life 
die, she will no longer be the land we love. 

The expression of that spiritual life, alive in the hearts of the people 
of your blood, has, I believe, been the basis for the achivements of the 
American negro. They are great and amazing achievements. They have 
been wrought, not from words, nor false claims, but by patience, toler- 
ance, restraint, and by the earned rewards of that merit, capacity and 
worth of citizenship of which I have spoken. 

Let all true Americans know that the census of 1910 showed that over 
67% of the men and 54% of the women of your blood were gainfully em- 
ployed, a larger percentage in both cases, than the rest of us Americans. 

Let America know that the churches of the colored race have in- 
creased during a little more than half a century from 700 to 43, 000. Let 
her know that home-owners have increased from 12,000 to 600,000 and 
farms operated from 20,000 to one million. Let America know that lit- 
eracy among colored people has climbed from 10% to 50%. 

Let all true Americans know and recognize that during the war the 
colored race of America invested one dollar of every five they owned in 
war bonds. Let them know that 340,000 colored boys were in our Army, 
with only one case of conviction for avoiding the draft. 

By when we Americans of whatever color, render tribute to the record 
of the American negro, let us not forget to render tribute to America 
under whose institutions and among whose people their record was made. 
For I tell you — and through you I tell all Americans — that if your people 
have progressed in so amazing and inspiring manner, it must have been 
that America gave you opportunity. If you have risen by your merit, 
capacity, and worth, and not by agitation and violence and revolt a- 
gainst our institutions it is proof that you have prospered under our in- 
stitutions, and have loved them. 

If the men and women of your blood have given, as we all desired to 

145 



give a great outpouring of treasure and blood upon the altar of patriotism, 
it is because the truth was in your hearts — America has given you her 
great blessing of justice. 

You have it, and you shall have it. It will be good American citizen- 
ship that will continue to accord it to your people, If I have anything to 
do with it, it shall also be good American obedience to law. Brutal and 
unlawful violence whether it proceeds from those who break the law or 
from those who take the law into their own hands, can only be dealt with 
in one way by true Americans, whether they be of your blood or of mine. 

Fear not! Here upon this beloved soil you shall have that justice 
that every man and woman of us knows would have been prayed for by 
Abraham Lincoln. Fear not! Your people by their restraint, their pa- 
tience, their wisdom, integrity, labor, and belief in God will earn the 
right to that justice, and America will bestow it. 



A SPEECH BY SENATOR WARREN G. HARDING 

TO DELEGATION OF BUSINESS MEN, 

MARION, OHIO, SEPTEMBER 11, 1920 

Americans: Most of you are business men, and through you I would 
like to send a message to all those Americans whose interest is American 
business. We are the great business nation of the world. We shall be 
able to save that business and prosper it by a fair measure of common 
sense, and we ought and must do it. We will consult the able and honest 
men whose counsel may be summoned by the Republican Party. We 
will restore representative government, and replace the distended execu- 
tive powers and extreme centralization which nearly eight years of mis- 
named democracy has brought us. We will preserve a willingness to 
listen to the will of the people, and will construe the desire for a common 
good fortune to mean the necessary good fortune of business, which is 
the life-blood of material existence. 

American business is not big business. Wilful folly has been in those 
persons in distended power over our national affairs who have spoken 
of American business as if it were a large and selfish interest seeking 
special privileges, and who, on that basis, have put their bungling hands 
upon its throat and tried tinkering and experimenting with it, and abus- 
ing it and treating it with suspicion. Let us put an end to holding suc- 
cess to be a crime. 

146 



We have seen the result of this reckless, wilful course during the 
calamitous regime which, though a few men who are in "perfect accord " 
seek to perpetuate it, the American people mean to put to^an end with a 
sigh of relief, and the exclamation, "That's over at last!" 
Everybody's Business 

It will be the American people who will do this because American 
business is everybody's business. Nearly nine-tenths of those who de- 
pend for their living and the legitimate fruits of their labors in American 
manufacturing are the wage-earners. The blow directed at American 
business, the pulling and hauling of American business by weird economic 
and social theories, applied by an administration which could not even 
run its own business, is less menacing, for instance, to the one-tenth who 
in manufacturing are business executives than it is to the nine- tenths 
who are our American laborers, and who begin to realize that another 
year or two of the group who are in "perfect accord " will mean for Amer- 
ican labor the "No Hour Day." 

The big business of America is the little businesses of America. The 
last available census figures show that more than sixty per cent of our 
manufacturers, which I use as an example, were little plants, none of 
which turned out more than $100,000 of products. Only twenty-five per 
cent of our plants were even doing business as corporations. The average 
number of workers employed was twenty-five. When we come to analyze 
what we mean by American business we find out that we mean the daily 
work of the nation, most of it undertaken in the factory and on the farm 
in small units. We find out that we even mean the business of the home 
and of the housewife, and that American business is everybody's business. 
It is more than that. It is the work of every worker, clothes for his or her 
back, food for his or her mouth. And when this bungling administration 
now seeks to perpetuate itself in "perfect accord," let us remember that 
its suspicion of business, and the use of its extraordinary war powers and 
its Socialistic tendencies have been bullying and tinkering with the 
pocket-books of all the American people. When I hear the voices of the 
present spokesmen of that regime talking about being progressive, I re- 
call the activity made in every direction, except forward, and especially 
that which has drawn us close to an economic business precipice. 

About at an End 

The day of that kind of progress is about at an end. We must face 
the new task. We have had a fever of high prices and excessive produc- 
tion out of the sacrificed billions of treasure and millions of lives, but the 
reconstruction must be sober business, founded on unchanging principle. 
We must summon the best abilities of America to put America back on 
the main road, and to remove the debris of the last eight years, and to 

147 



keep our industries running, and to restore the proper ratio of prosperity 
to our American agriculture sd that it can again bid for good American 
standard labor. The day of the one-man war- power form of government 
must yield to the sound practice of the Republic. 

If our memory is directed again to 1914, when the "new freedom" 
brought us to the verge of paralysis, we will recall that world war alone 
saved us from a disaster in peace. We were sharpening our wits in compe- 
tition with the world, as the President then expressed it, but we dulled 
our capacity to buy, then war saved us psychologically and commercially 
but today we are at peace, actual though not proclaimed, and our prob- 
lems are the problems of peace. 

We must always exact, from ourselves and our business, high, honor- 
able and fair dealing by law, and by law's rigid enforcement when neces- 
sary, but we must repeal and wipe out a mass of executive orders and 
laws which, failing to serve effectively that purpose, serve only to leave 
American business in anxiety, uncertainty and darkness. 

We must readjust our tariff, and this time with especial regard for the 
new economic menaces to our American agriculture as well as factory. 

Must Readjust Taxation 

We must readjust our internal taxation, especially the excess profits 
tax, to remove the burdens it imposes upon the will to create and pro- 
duce, whether that will is the will of the big corporation, the small cor- 
poration, or of the individual. 

We must uproot from our national government the yearning to under- 
take enterprises and experiments which were never intended as the work 
of our government, and which have proved ineffective to a point which 
sickens us all, and that our government is incapable of performing with- 
out wreckage or chaos. Of necessity, the machinery of government ex- 
pands as we grow in numbers as a people, but before government expands 
in bureaucratic control of business its sponsors ought first demonstrate 
a capacity to conduct the business of the government. When government 
\tself has a budget of more than three billion a year, in times of peace, it 
has a business of its own to look after — and it needs looking after — with- 
out seeking new fields to conquer until it has proven capacity for the 
tasks it must perform. 

We must, instead of such experiments, establish a closer understand- 
ing between American government and American business, so that one 
may serve the other, and the other obey and seek co-operation. 

We must give government co-operation to business, we must protect 
American business at home, and we must aid and protect it abroad by 
the upbuilding of our merchant marine, and a restoration of our self- 

148 



respecting measure of American protection to her citizens wherever they 
may go upon righteous errands. 

Build Into New Strength 

We must build our economic life into new strength and we must do it 
so that our prosperity shall not be the prosperity of profiteerers nor of 
special privilege. 

We must do it so that abroad we are known not as a nation strutting 
under a plumage of fine words, but as one that knits friendly and peace- 
ful relations by the shuttle of honorable deeds. 

We must do it so that at home our economic life yields opportunity 
to every man not to have that which he has not earned, whether he be 
the capitalist or the most humble laborer, but to have a share in pros- 
perity based upon his own merit, capacity and worth — under the eternal 
spirit of "America First." 

American business has suffered from staggering blows because of too 
much ineffective meddling by government, and it is equally true that good 
government has almost been allowed to die on our hands, because it has 
not utilized the first sound principles of American business. 
Allowed to Degenerate 

The government of the United States, of this nation of ours, which 
should be an example of American good sense and sound organization 
has been allowed to degenerate into an inadequate piece of administra- 
tive machinery. While we have heard preaching to all the nations of the 
earth, which, to put it mildly, has been adequate indeed, the back of our 
leadership has been turned on the bad example we have set before the 
world in the conduct of our own affairs. I refer only to the deplorable 
impairment which has been given our time-tested democratic institutions 
by robbing our representative government of its place in our Republic in 
order to fatten administrative authority and replace the will of the people 
by the will of the wilful. I refer not only to the conspiracy of "perfect 
accord" by which it is hoped to perpetuate these powers. I am referring 
now to the fact that not only has the government been twisted out of 
shape, been dictatorial and meddling and has been extending its activity 
to experiments beyond its powers, but also^to the fact that it has blun- 
dered in every direction. 

The People Pay 

It has engaged in prodigal waste. The American people pay. It has 
kept its overstuffed bureaus and departments, many of which are doing 
overlapping work, in a prime condition of reckless inefficiency. The Amer- 
ican people pay. It has a record in the appointment of campaign-contrib- 
utor diplomats who have been without previous experience in foreign 
affairs. The American people pay. It has engaged in all kinds of costly 

149 



bungling experiments of government management and ownership of 
enterprises which other management could do better. The American 
people pay. It has allowed worthy federal employees, particularly those 
who are skilled, such as chemists and agricultural experts, to go so badly 
paid by the government that they have left the service. The American 
people have to bear the cost. It has poured forth our national treasure 
into the yawning emptiness of unpreparedness for war and unprepared- 
ness for peace. It has spent our money and failed to do business, while 
the prodigal flow went on. The American people have paid, and are pay- 
ing. With a return to sanity we now have another task before us in mak- 
ing the administrative part of our government one in which a people, 
proud of their abilities in business, can take pride. 

We must not let our administrative government crack under the load 
of its new burdens or those that our future may place upon it. It has 
been cracking badly, sometimes neglected during absence, and some- 
times exploited at home by those who, now in "perfect accord," desire 
to perpetuate their power. To repair it is the business of every American 
— not only because of pride, but also because he or she pays for it, and is 
entitled to good government without waste. 

Declare for a New System 

We have declared for a system of planning our expenditures so that 
overlapping and leakage and inefficiency shall be revealed before they 
occur. This national budget plan passed already by a Republican Con- 
gress and vetoed, we must put into force. 

We must put our postal service upon a new basis. 

We must extend the merit system in the choice and promotion of fed- 
eral employees. 

We must not only lop off the useless jobs being done, but we must so 
reward efficiency and value among our public service employees that we 
may continue to have their loyalty because we have given decent pay 
and the expectation of promotion when promotion is earned. 

We must conduct a careful scrutiny of our great executive depart- 
ments to plan so that similar labors shall not be duplicated and so that 
similar functions shall be grouped and not scattered. 

We must go to men who know, for advice in administrative improve- 
ment; we must have to aid us more men trained in agriculture, more tech- 
nical men, more men who know business and the practices of commerce 
and trade. 

We must organize our administrative government upon the basis of 
American business so that the faith of the American people in the com- 
mon sense of the Republican Party to put America into shape again shall 
not have been misplaced. 

150 



I look upon the responsibility of an executive officer as being based 
first of all upon his ability, together with that of capable men called to 
execute. An executive officer of any other than government business 
would be discharged if he allowed paralysis and perversion of the func- 
tioning of that business, while he and his followers were engaged in ad- 
dressing advice to the neighbors. 

Let them who say that the American people are not awake to these 
matters take new counsel. The government is the people's business, and 
they will not see it broken down. The government is the concern of every 
American — of every man, woman and child. We are shareholders in it 
and we are looking forward with relief to an end of mismanagement. 
Expansion Has Been Haphazard 

This great federal machine has grown up in a century of haphazard 
expansion, until, as recently described, it resembles "an antiquated cen- 
tral building with a large number of surrounding sheds and cottages, 
overcrowded with overlapping officials and saturated with methods of 
organization and administration fully fifty years behind the times." 

An eminent senator once said he could substitute his private business 
methods for government practices and save hundreds of millions. It was 
thought to be true when he said it, and we might treble the figures for 
the saving now. 

Democracy has done nothing in eight years to cure the waste and in- 
efficiency; it has rather added to them. We are the ineffective prodigals 
of the world. 

Here in America we have developed the most proficient and most 
efficient types of business organization and administration in the world; 
they have shown the greatest capacity for administrative vision. We 
mean to call that administrative quality and fitness into the service of 
the government, and establish an advance in government business, not 
merely talk about government progress. 

Conditions are calling, capabilities await, the needs are urging and we 
pledge a Republican administration to inaugurate a new order — a busi- 
ness government, with business efficiency, and a business concern for 
public approval. 

The Keeping of Contracts 

Because I am speaking to business men, and because they have a 
special appreciation of the importance of clearness in their contracts, I 
have a very special matter in mind that I want to speak to you about 
today. Incidentally, it ought to be said that one of the most important 
things in the relationship of men is the keeping of contracts. We must 
perform our legal obligations with great fidelity, and we must always 
hold our moral obligations as inviolable. If every one keeps his contracts 

151 



faithfully there would not be many conflicts among either the peoples or 
the nations of the world. 

The special matter which I have in mind relates to the ambiguity, 
or the conflict of terms, in a very important contract which it has been 
proposed that America shall enter upon with other leading nations of the 
world. If the agent of a business establishment should negotiate so con- 
tradictory an agreement an explanation would be called for very quickly. 

Some of you will recall that Mr. Lansing, who was then secretary of 
state, and who was in a position to know pretty intimately about what 
was going on during the negotiations at Paris, made the very frank state- 
ment that if the American people knew what the Versailles covenant 
would "let them in for," they never would stand for its adoption. It was 
for such frank expressions, and like fidelity to America, that Secretary 
Lansing was retired from the service at the moment of his highest need 
to our country. I want to point out to you, and through you to America, 
one of the dangerous things Secretary Lansing was thinking about when 
he was speaking for our nation. I am sure it is a contradiction that no 
business man would tolerate in a contract to which he is expected to ap- 
pend his signature. 

The Monroe Doctrine 

The thing in mind is the consideration given to the great Monroe 
doctrine in the league covenant and the very evident possibility, if not, 
indeed, a probability, of the necessary abandonment of that doctrine by 
this country if we had entered upon the covenant as negotiated by the 
President. I do not presume to give you an explanation as to the source 
of contradictions or the probable intent thereof. However, the plain 
facts are that in the first draft of the league covenant the Monroe doc- 
trine, that strong declaration of a great national policy which we have 
cherished for more than one hundred years, was ignored entirely. When 
the President made his brief visit at home, between periods of negotia- 
tions, he discovered that America would never consent to "scrap" the 
Monroe doctrine ; that America was very strongly committed to the up- 
holding of this doctrine, and held it in little less reverence than the Ameri- 
can constitution itself. So, on his return to Paris, the President made, or 
pretended to make a concession to the reverence of the American people. 
The concession was made in connection with Article XXI. The official 
copies of that league covenant, executed by the various commissioners, 
including our own, were printed in both English and French, in parallel 
columns. The signatures to the covenant were appended beneath these 
parallel columns, and very naturally each column is presumed to express 
precisely what the other column conveys. In the English text the exact 
words of Article XXI read as follows: 

152 



The English Version 

" Nothing in this covenant shall be deemed to affect the valid- 
ity of international engagements, such as treaties of arbitration or 
regional understandings like the Monroe doctrine, for securing the 
maintenance of peace." 

This is the quotation from the English text as proclaimed to America, 
and alluded to as the one outstanding expression which safeguards the 
Monroe doctrine. But it really does nothing of the sort, for it is a very 
flagrant misrepresentation of what the Monroe doctrine really is. The 
Monroe doctrine is not an "international engagement" nor a "treaty of 
arbitration" nor a "regional understanding." It is a plain, square, fear- 
less declaration of the United States which is a warning against European 
nations exerting undue influence or applying improper pressure upon the 
helpless republics of the western hemisphere, indeed, it is America's warn- 
ing to the Old World against foreign aggression, for our own protection 
and for the protection of those who have a right to look to this Republic 
for an effective manifestation of neighborly interest. 

But this is not the main ambiguity in the contract. The point I really 
wish to stress is the difference between the French and the English text, 
which might very readily involve us in unhappy conflict. The French 
text is quoted as follows: 

The French Text 

"Les engagements internationaux, tels que les traites d'abitrage, 
et les ententes regionales, comme la Doctrine de Monroe, qui assur- 
ent le maintien de la paix, ne sont consideres comme incompatibles 
avec aucune des dispositions du present Facte." 

Translators say that the French is so simple and lucid that one can 
read it without being a master of the language and understand it perfect- 
ly. The literal translation reads as follows: 

"International engagements, such as treaties of arbitration, 
and regional understandings, like the Monroe Doctrine, which as- 
sure the maintenance of peace, are not considered as incompatible 
with any of the provisions of the present pact." 
Comparing the two versions of this solemn covenant, no one can fail 
to perceive that one text is the complete reversal of the other. The Eng- 
lish translation pretends to say that nothing in the covenant shall affect 
the validity of the Monroe doctrine, while the original version in French 
asserts very plainly that engagements like the Monroe doctrine "are not 
considered as incompatible with any provisions of the present pact." 
The intimation in English is that, in the event of conflict concerning the 
two provisions, the league covenant must be made to coincide with the 
Monroe doctrine, but the literal effect of the clause as originally drawn 

153 



in the French, in case a controversy arises, is the subordination of the 
Monroe doctrine to such a degree as virtually to involve its complete 
abandonment. The President and the other American commissioners 
signed both of these texts in committing this republic to the league coven- 
ant. It is not difficult to see what the result would have been if the Senate 
had been driven into unqualified ratification. 

Can One Doubt Result? 

Inevitably some question involving the integrity of the Monroe doc- 
trine would have soon arisen, with an apparent conflict between this 
cherished American doctrine and the league covenant. Americans would 
naturally have said "the doctrine must stand unimpaired, for the coven- 
ant says that nothing in the covenant shall affect the doctrine." Any 
European power might have replied in good reason, "No, the doctrine 
must give way to the covenant, for the covenant says nothing in the 
doctrine shall be considered incompatible with the treaty." Each side 
would have been right, according to its version of the language in the 
treaty. The question, which version is correct, would, of course, have 
been raised incidentally, and, in the words of Lord Cecil, the council of 
the league, containing one vote from the United States, "would have 
been called upon to settle it." Can any one doubt that the decision would 
have followed the original French text, which is by universal recognition, 
the official language of diplomacy? America would have had to acquiesce 
in the demolition of her cherished doctrine, or go to war, contrary to her 
own solemn pledge to sustain that doctrine. 

One can not help but wonder whether the whole thing was a trap to 
destroy the good, American doctrine of Monroe, to which this Republic 
has been committed for more than a century. It is impossible to believe 
that the English version was intended to be an exact rendering of the 
French, no one will consent to believe it was meant to be identical in 
purport. In short, we were starting out with an ambiguity which, in 
itself, might readily be the first basis of controversy, and involve us with 
the nations of the Old World. One wishes to be both charitable and con- 
siderate, but it is hard to believe that this very marked discrepancy was 
perpetrated without intention. Clearly, either America is being deceived 
or the representatives of America have sought to deceive the nations with 
whom we propose to covenant our peaceful associations. 

I do not believe the President would have knowingly been a party to 
the deception of his own country, and I will not assume to say that the 
commissioners of other lands have deliberately meant to dupe us, but 
there is manifest misunderstanding in the very beginning, which, in any 
business contract, would have to be clarified before any prudent business 
man would sign. 

154 



Senate Averts Danger 

Wherever the fault may lie, whether it is the fruit of duplicity or the 
failure of intelligent understanding, it is very clear that only the Senate's 
demand that the Monroe doctrine be explicitly recognized saved this 
country from a highly dangerous controversy and probably has saved 
the Doctrine from complete extinction. Those who advocate America's 
acceptance of the league covenant ought, in all seriousness, bring forth 
the explanation of this shocking ambiguity of contract. I only point it 
out to emphasize the fact that the acceptance of the league covenant, as 
negotiated, which the President and the Democratic nominee for his suc- 
cessor, have urged upon us "in complete accord," would have meant the 
surrender of one of the precious inheritances of this Republic, or in all 
probability would have involved us in a controversy with other nations 
and destroyed our peaceful relationship. 

It is purely a matter of business prudence, therefore, that we propose 
to cling to our own freedom in international relationship, and enter upon 
only such compact of perfect clarity as will permit us to play our part in 
bringing about disarmament and commit the consciences of nations to 
maintained peace. Nobody is proposing to hold aloof from the onward 
procession of humanity. On the contrary, it is our part to be conspicuous 
in leading to new achievements. We mean to lift the voice of America to 
outlaw war and settle controversies between nations as become the de- 
votees of peace. In seeking this great advance, we do not mean to begin 
on a foundation which is of itself an encouragement to controversy, but 
we want to start with that clarity of understanding wherein we know 
America is right and which may hold us resolute and unfraid. 



155 



A SPEECH BY SENATOR WARREN G. HARDING 

TO MEMBERS OF HARDING AND COOLIDGE 

RAILWAY EMPLOYES' CLUB OF MARION, 

OHIO, AT MARION, OHIO, SEPTEM- 

BER 13, 1920 

Gentlemen of the Harding and CooHdge Railway Employes Club: — 
It is a source of very special satisfaction to have your call, and be able 
to talk to you concerning some matters relating to the restoration and 
operation of the American railways. I rejoice in the opportunity to speak 
to you concerning the appreciation of our people of the railway ac- 
tivities by which they are served. 

Very recently there came to me a new appreciation of the extreme 
importance of American railways to our every-day activities. We are 
so accustomed to taking every-day things as simple matters of course 
that we seldom arise to full realization of their real importance. 

On returning recently from a trip to the Northwest it was our fortune 
to have a car transferred from one railway, reaching Chicago from the 
Northwest, to the line of the Erie, for our return to Marion. The transfer 
was routed over the belt system of Chicago which connects up the var- 
ious lines of railway transportation in that great city. I cannot get away 
from the impressions of that trip through the various Chicago yards. 
There were seemingly endless networks of tracks and an incalculable 
number of switches and crossings, and we had before us a very impressive 
picture of the physical complexities of our modern railway system as 
applied to a great center of population. Sometimes I found myself won- 
dering how the average man was able to pick out the sure and safe way, 
to any given destination. The inevitable conclusion was that there al- 
ways is a safe and open way, if one only knows the means of selecting 
it, and our business in America now is the selection of the proper route 
for the great train of American progress, to continue on our forward 
course. 

One of the things deeply impressing me was that in this process of 
transportation, both of cargoes and human beings, there are thousands 
of trains moving daily to their destination, and a very large percentage 
of these trains do reach their destination on time and most of them arrive 
in safety to cargo or passengers, as the case may be. This wonderful 
service is so regular, so seemingly the natural thing, that we rarely utter a 
word of approval and commendation for the excellent things done, but 
we do cry out in criticism or anxiety whenever some mishap occurs. 

156 



Sometimes I think we ought to give expression to America of admiration 
and approval for the splendid accomplishment of speeding a great 
passenger train across the continent, on time and in safety, as a bit of 
inspiration to maintain our standards at such a degree of perfection. 
At any rate, the main thing in my thought is to say something of appre- 
ciation and approval, rather than to cry out in criticism. 

When I stop to think of the perils of speeded travel, of the countless 
switches and the proneness of the human element to sometimes fail, of 
bridges, crossings and possible obstructions on the rails, I never dismount 
from a train without feeling a very genuine gratitude to every man in 
the railway service who has been employed in serving me and the country 
in the operations of transportation. In my gratitude I think not alone of 
the managerial genius; not alone of the train dispatcher whose accuracy 
of orders is a first essential to security; not alone to the clear-brained, 
strong-hearted men of the cab; not alone of the men who compose the 
train crew and their full responsibility for safety, but I think of the watch- 
men and tower men whose performance of their duties is no less essential, 
and I think of the track force which is ever engaged in humble but ex- 
tremely vital work of maintaining a dependable rail over which we hurry 
on our journey. It constitutes a tremendous organization, with a very 
great degree of responsibility on every branch of the service, and out of the 
co-ordinated activities of all of them, with a spirit of devotion to the work 
and a resolution to serve, comes that effective and reliant operation 
which in these days constitutes the circulation or nervous system of a 
great Republic. 

Nothing is more interesting than the making of the American trans- 
portation lines and the evolution of the railway business. If one were 
to contemplate the railways of America from the narrow viewpoint of 
one who knew only the early days of exploitation and adventure there 
would be a poor understanding, indeed, of the problem which we have 
before us. I can recall very readily the building of many railroads. It is 
perfectly fair to say that while every railroad was so located as to effective- 
ly bid for business, and performed its part in the development of the 
section in which it was located, neverthe less the chief inspiration in early 
days was found in the opportunity to play upon local interest and pride, 
and exploit the financing. The early railroad builders, in many instances, 
were more concerned with the profits in building and financing than they 
were in the ultimate profits in legitimate earnings. In other words, 
railway promotion and construction was a business in itself. I do not 
mean to commend the things which were done. On the contrary I 
think they are unworthy of commendation, but the fact remains that much 
of our very important railway construction — much of the very necessary 

157 



pioneering — was inspired by the possibilities of profits in promoting 
constructing and finally financing. If we were to contemplate the rail- 
ways from that viewpoint today we should deal very unjustly with 
those who honestly invested in railway securities, and who finally fur- 
nished the means for the dependable activities of the railways which are 
so requisite to our present-day needs. In other words, I am thinking of 
the railway systems of America as we see them before us today, without 
any prejudice founded upon the period of the past in which they were 
promoted and ofttimes exploited in financial operations. 

When the World War came on we had not only the largest railway 
development in the world, but we had the most effective service at the 
lowest known rate of service in the world. We had come to understand 
the necessity of government restraint on the financing of railroads; we 
had learned the extreme necessity of putting an end to favoring rates 
and conspiracy with big business; we had found, in short, the need of 
the government stepping in and applying a regulating hand to a very 
necessary public service. We had made great progress in this direction, 
much of it justified and much of it helpful, but we had gone so far in 
restriction and regulation that the government's response to much of the 
railway baiting made it difficult for the railway management to keep 
apace with the expanding requirements of the country. We were facing 
just such a condition when we found ourselves involved in the World War. 
It is not important to discuss now whether the railway service was break- 
ing down under the great strain put upon it for war service, the country 
was apprehensive, and we were all deeply concerned in putting every- 
thing that we possessed at the command of the government for winning 
of the war. With such a feeling manifest throughout the country, the 
railroads were taken over for the war, to put them utterly under the com- 
mand of government agents. Undoubtedly, there was back of the move- 
ment the insistent forces in our country who believe in government 
ownership of railways. War seemed to offer the opportunity for the ap- 
plication of their theories of government, and I sometimes suspect the 
taking over of the railroads was more impelled by the thought of modifying 
our government policy than the developing of a better service for the 
conduct of the war. This suggestion was later on confirmed by the 
insistence of the administration that it be given authority to take over 
the telephone and telegraph lines. When Congress voted a grant of au- 
thority to take over the telephone and telegraph lines it was expressly 
stipulated that no such seizure would be made unless the exigencies of 
war urgently required it, but after the authority was given, without a 
new exigency having arisen and without a single new condition of peril 
the telephone and telegraph lines were seized, because an administration 

1S8 



was in power which was disposed to take advantage of the anxieties of 
people, while involved in war, to completely revolutionize our govern- 
ment policy in dealing with these public utilities. 

If the experiment with the railroads and these communication lines 
had been successful it reasonably may be assumed that the policy would 
have been made permanent. Such was the undoubted intent of the 
present administration. The experiment, however, did not have the 
effect of committing the country to the policy of government ownership. 
We were already enormously in debt, and the purchase of the railroads 
and communication lines involved so stupendous a sum that no sane 
government would contemplate the purchase and financially disastrous 
government operation. 

The administration found itself without a policy. There was a 
very deep concern everywhere as to whether the railway lines would be 
handed back to their owners in a condition of chaos, or whether Congress 
could work out a plan to return them and perform the government's 
proper part in aiding to restore them to efficient service and that neces- 
sary solvency to continue their development and effective operation. 
Congress found itself confronted with this very serious problem, which 
involved the effectiveness of that transportation on which all the country 
relies, and Congress gave very earnest and solemn thought to the solu- 
tion of the problem. No one can dispute there was considerable haste, in 
view of the extreme importance of the task, but legislation had to be 
speeded to avoid a national disaster. The outcome was the enactment of 
what is known as the Cummins-Esch lav/. No law of like importance 
ever was so speedily enacted. The law is not precisely the thing proposed 
by the lower House of Congress, nor is it exclusively the Senate's con- 
ception of the best plan for restoring the railroads to their owners under 
certain necessary provisions of government regulation. The two Houses 
developed very different measures. One measure was doubtless as 
righteous in intent as the other, but, like all cases in which there is a 
conflict between House and Senate, the Cummins-Esch law is a com- 
promise which harmonizes the two. I do not venture to say that the 
law is perfect, or that it is the final word in government regulation 
and co-operation. I do insist that the measure represents the best ex- 
pression of Congress which could be worked out in the time at the 
command of the two Houses, and that it has made the just restoration 
of the railway properties to their owners, and has happily provided 
the means and fixed a policy under which the railways can be restored to 
that degree of efficiency which is so essential to the requirements of 
service to our common country. 

The law effecting the restoration includes the best provisions which 

159 



we had developed in the period of regulation which existed prior to the 
government seizures. In some respects we have gone much further and 
in many ways we have enlarged the government control, and at the same 
time we have taken into new consideration the necessary concern of the 
country for railway improvement. As a simple matter of truth, under 
the new regime, we have an Interstate Commerce Commission with en- 
larged authority; we have recognized the necessity of granting the rail- 
ways a compensation for service which will enable them to live ; we have 
put an end to financial exploitation; we have put a limit on capital 
issues; we have even gone so far as to put a limit on the return which 
railway capital may earn. 

At this point I must emphasize one of the gross misunderstandings 
relating to the Cummins-Esch law. It did not provide for a permanent 
government guarantee of dividends on railway capital. On the contrary 
it placed a limit on these dividends. It did provide for a maintenance 
of rates for a period of six months which would guarantee a sufficient 
railway earning to make possible the financing of necessary railway 
improvements under the control of their owners, but this guarantee of 
^ 5^% earning was limited to the period of transition of six months dura- 
tion, and was universally recognized as being necessary because of the 
admitted failure of the government to maintain the railways in a state 
of preparedness for efficient service. Not in every instance perhaps, but 
in scores of instances the physical property had been permitted to 
deteriorate under the pressure of war service, and rolling stock was 
neglected and worn out under the stress of war pressure, so that when 
the restoration to the owners was made they were not in a position to 
meet the new requirements of peace as they were ready to meet the 
requirements of war when the property was seized. 

Hundreds of millions were known to be necessary to provide new 
rolling stock and motive power, and we have already had most con- 
vincing proof of the inadequacy of railway transportation to our present 
day needs. Coal transportation affords a striking example. If we had 
returned the railroads without this temporary guarantee of earnings, 
which would permit them to finance their necessary improvements, in 
all probability the great American system would have broken down 
entirely, and we should have found ourselves in a state of railway paraly- 
sis which the country could not tolerate. 

It ought to be said in passing, that Congress was not thinking alone 
of the owners in providing for this period of transition, when we guar- 
anteed the stockholders a return on their property for the first six 
months. We also stipulated that there should be no reduction of Amer- 
ican railway wages during that same period. In other words, we gave 

160 



the American railway workmen precisely the same guarantee that we 
gave to the American owners, and in neither case was this done with a 
sole thought of owners or of workmen, but Congress was thinking of the 
welfare of all the American people. This ever must be the thought in 
mind in dealing with any important public question. 

I have already alluded to the restrictions which the government 
has placed upon railway capital, railway rates and railway earnings. 
It is the simple truth. We have eliminated every speculative phase of 
railway operation until the railway business has become an extremely 
conservative one, with nothing left to inspire efficiency and pride in 
management, except that of competition in service. We have taken 
away that impelling force known as money-making, and reduced rail- 
way operation to a service to the American people, with a very limited 
return, made possible, on capital employed. There does remain that 
competition which may aim at superiority in service, and through that 
a genuine railway genius and talent may continue to appeal for the ap- 
proval of their constituency and the American people generally. 

Naturally, this enactment did not appeal to those radical advo- 
cates of railway ownership or those socialistic theorists who thought 
the railways ought to be seized by the government and placed at the 
disposal of the railway workers for permanent operation and profit. 
Congress felt an abiding obligation to restore the property seized for 
war to those who held title thereto, just as we are under obligations to 
keep faith with every one who placed his life or his possessions at the 
command of the government for the winning of the war. To have vio- 
lated the good faith of America and to have seized railway properties and 
turned them over to a favored class in America would have involved the 
destruction of our very system of government, and revolutionized the 
Republic. I do not believe America will ever consent to seize the right- 
eously owned property of any citizen to place it in the hands of another. 
This would be a violation of the very fundamentals of civil liberty and 
would take away from all men the inspiration to acquire, because the 
protection of honest acquirement is the thing which inspires men to do 
and achieve, and leads to that wholesome ambition for possession which 
is the impelling force in all our activities. I like to speak of these things to 
wage-earners, because I know that the workman most worth while is one 
who aspires not only to acquire for himself, but is ever thinking of doing 
better for his children than he has ever been able to do for himself, and 
we would paralyze America if we were to adopt the policy of seizing 
property lawfully owned to bestow it on others, at the will of any 
group which temporarily finds itself in a position of great influence. 
Every man has the right to an inspiration to acquire, and he has also 

161 



the right to expect his government to protect him in his righteous 
acquirement. To have seized the railways and to have bestowed them 
upon the operating forces would have been the destruction of everything 
we hold precious as an inspiration to American advancement. 

The Cummins-Esch law, however, made one notably progressive 
step in dealing with the railway workmen. There has been much out- 
cry against the act as being hostile to labor and unjust to Unionism and 
subservient to capital. On the contrary it is the very opposite of these 
things. No man in public life would deliberately vote to enact a measure 
unjust to the millions of workmen employed on American railways. 
I say it deliberately, I think the Cummins-Esch law the most considerate 
piece of legislation ever enacted in the protection of any group of work- 
men in the United States. In the first place it does not interfere with col- 
lective bargaining; on the contrary, it facilitates collective bargaining. 
Moreover, it especially and expressly utters the nation's interest in the 
welfare of the railway workers, and in substance provides for them 
a new bill of rights. It recognizes that railway workmen ought to be 
employed under the most fortunate conditions for the good of all the 
American people. It, in effect, provides that they shall be abundantly 
and generously compensated, and establishes, for the first time in Amer- 
ica, a tribunal through which the government's concern for workmen 
may be given expression. For the first time in our national affairs this 
law establishes a system under which workmen may voice their griev- 
ances and express their aspirations, and speak for themselves and their 
fellows without resorting to costly strikes or the destructive conflict of 
forces. The government has fixed a tribunal in which the workmen are 
given equal representation with their employers, a tribunal to hear and 
adjust all disputes, all wage demands and grievances, and back of this 
tribunal is the power of the United States Government, eager to support 
the just demand of labor and to grant to it immediate and ample justice. 
Nothing, it seems to me, could be more fair; nothing so clearly expresses 
the advance of American public opinion in dealing with the workmen 
engaged in the public service. 

While the law was pending I talked to a group of labor representa* 
tives about the fairness of this provision, and they all agreed that it was 
ideal; that it constituted a distinct advance, and when asked to say 
why it should not be the decision of Congress, their only reply was that 
they did not have faith in our government. My reply to them was, as 
it shall be to you today, it is ours to maintain a government in which 
every citizen shall have unfaltering faith. 

Frankly, men, I think that the Cummins-Esch law has brought to 
you a protection, along with an expression of government concern, which 

162 



has never been expressed in a legislative enactment heretofore, and has 
given you a new charter of freedom under which to continue your ac- 
tivities. It has really made of you a favored group of employes, under 
the justification that you are employed in what may be regarded dis- 
tinctly as a public service. The government wishes you to be the most 
satisfied workmen in the world; it wants you to be interested in the tre- 
mendously important work which is in your hands; it wants you to feel 
that every line of rail and every train on that rail and every cargo carried 
all are of deep concern to you, and that you are just as much interested in 
the perfect operation as the shipper or the consignee of the cargo, or 
of the passenger who places his safety and security in your hands. There 
is a very peculiar trust placed in the hands of the American railway 
workmen, and America wants you to feel that for the performance of a 
great public service the public in turn appreciates what you do, and 
means to see to it that you are treated with the fulness of justice which 
becomes America. 

I think it is an extremely important thing that the railway workmen 
are insured against the uncertain operations of that natural law of 
supply and demand which often interrupts employment, and that your 
relationship to your employment is based upon the consideration of hu- 
manity and justice. If any man thinks this policy is unfriendly to labor 
he has not stopped to contemplate the spirit of the enactment. I fear 
a great many railway workmen have been given a very erroneous im- 
pression of the Cummins-Esch act. A full understanding of it will con- 
vince any fair man that it is unimpeachably fair to labor. There is not an 
anti-union suggestion in it. It does not even decree compulsory arbitra- 
tion, but it does open the way to a complete revelation of all differences, 
and puts irresistible public opinion back of an immediate and just settle- 
ment. It must be understood by you, and by the owners of the American 
railways, that this act was not designed specifically in the interest of 
either of you, but Congress was thinking about avoiding the collapse of 
the American railway system, and providing that efhciency upon which 
depends the well-being of every industry and the prosperity of every 
citizen, and the continued employment of every wage earner. One needs 
only to stop to think, to come to a realization of the dependency of 
everyone in America upon the effectiveness of the American railroads. 
That is why I am so interested in that continued progress in dealing 
with the question that we may sometime acclaim the day when there can 
be no paralysis of American transportation. I speak the hope in the in- 
terest of all America, but I utter the caution that this condition is more 
important to the American wage-earner than anyone else. 

All public money of necessity comes from the pockets of the American 

163 



people. Some pay more and some pay less, but the resources of govern- 
ment are the resources of the people, and the humblest citizen is called 
upon to pay as well as the citizen of vast resources. This is why the enor- 
mous loss under government operation so thoroughly disgusted the 
country. It cost America a billion dollars to make the government- 
operation experiment in war, and no one can say that it would have 
cost less to make a like experiment in peace. During the experiment 
of government operation the deterioration in railway property was a 
billion more, and the whole adventure brought a crushing obligation 
to the government, and the people who pay the government's obliga- 
tions. Our big task is to liquidate the loss and start afresh. It is a matter 
of very great gratification that the Cummins-Esch law saved us from the 
collapse of railway securities, and has permitted a promising beginning 
of the necessary restoration. We have not yet recovered the efficiency 
for which the country is calling, but that must be worked out in a spirit 
of co-operation between management and employes. I wish I could 
say the thing which would add to the faith of the millions of railway 
workers that every undertaking is his especial service to his fellowmen. 
Railway employment is not mere participation in a pursuit of livelihood, 
it is playing a part in the most essential activity in the form of public 
service which the American people know. Of necessity then any law 
must have concern for every party at interest, and always the one big 
thought must be of service to the American people. 

Let us ever keep in mind that the making of America was very 
largely dependent upon the construction and development of the greatest 
railroad mileage in the world. Here in the United States we have more 
than one quarter of all the lines on the face of the earth, Europe has 
four times our population and yet it has less railway mileage than we 
boast in the United States. With her large population, her cost of freight 
transportation is vastly higher than ours, and out of American genius 
and enterprise and confidence we have developed what is admittedly 
the most perfect railway system in the service of mankind. New lines 
will come very slowly in the future, because we have eliminated every 
speculative phase of railway construction and operation, but we can 
render high service by adding to the efficiency of the lines already builded, 
and I express the hope that out of a perfection of the present law will 
develop some means of encouraging the new lines of communication 
which are going to be requisite to our greater and grander development. 
This whole problem of making America is one of interest to every citizen 
of the Republic. There can be no permanent good fortune which is not 
a good fortune to all the people. We cannot have the larger compensa- 
tion and the more fortunate conditions for one group at the expense of 

164 



some other, but the greatness in America lies in considering the right of 
all and harmonizing our endeavors to ever promote a common good. 
This is the thought which is back of every utterance ; is the heart of every 
promise; is the soul of every purpose in promoting the great political 
enterprise with which I am so deeply concerned, and in which you have 
expressed your cordial and friendly interest tonight. Let us jointly share 
the hope that we may go forward in the making of a better America, 
with a constant elevation of the standards of living and the fuller enjoy- 
ment of the things which are included in the becoming aspirations of a 
hopeful American life. I want your confidence and I want the country's 
confidence; not for me; not for the party alone which has honored me, 
but for the government of the American people to which we so often 
turn for the practical working out of that harmonized relationship which 
is our security for today and our best promise of the future. 



A SPEECH BY SENATOR WARREN G. HARDING 

TO DELEGATION OF CALIFORNIANS, 

MARION, OHIO, SEPTEMBER 14, 1920 

Americans: I greet you who come from far places, with deep grati- 
tude for the honor you have done the cause I represent, which I believe 
is the cause of all the people of America. 

There is no sectionalism in the United States, and if we all, by toler- 
ance and justice and patriotism, stand together — the North and the 
South, the East and the West — we will perpetuate that spirit by which 
America has had her being and her glories, coming through stress and 
storm at times, but always coming through. 

"America First" — That spirit, my friends, is behind our individual 
citizenship which conceives government as being the expression of a com- 
munity of interests and not a paternal or autocratic, or one-man source 
of pretended benevolence. It is an absurd idea that government may be 
the distributor of magic resources. The only resources of a government 
are the resources that its citizens put into it. 

Let us not allow those who would like to retain the autocratic power 
which the war put into their hands to deceive free Americans with the 
delusion that "democracy" painted as a sign over their works conceals 
the fact that they have robbed us of true democracy. They have set up 
a one-man dictatorship which they, of course, desire to perpetuate and 
which finds in their various spokesmen the expression, "We are in full 
accord." 

165 



For Constitutional Government 

I confess little patience with those who complain about that which 
they choose to call a Senate "oligarchy." Those who prefer autocratic 
personal government to the representative institution which was in- 
herited, and under which we have wrought to the astonishment of the 
world, naturally oppose the Senate exercising its constitutional functions. 
They do not like representative government and its reflective delibera- 
tion which discriminates between ephemeral passion and popular fancies 
on the one hand and dependable public opinion on the other. The Senate 
is not popular with those who attempted to merge inspiring nationality 
in paralyzing internationality; it is not in favor with those who dreamed 
world-government, backed by a military alliance, to be preferable to the 
exercise of American conscience which gave us eminence for rare unsel- 
fishness. Those who rail at the Senate accept the constitutional exist- 
ence of Senate and House only when these bodies from the people are "in 
perfect accord" to perpetuate dictatorial rule. But the people have come 
to a new appreciation of congress, and find assurance in the renewed 
functioning of those bodies. 

I like to remind our people that they elect members of both House 
and Senate, and in these two bodies of Congress are more than five hun- 
dred men commissioned by the American millions, through a popular 
vote, to speak and act for them, and to share the solemn responsibilities 
of government which are far too heavy for one man to assume. 

For War and Peace 

My own observation has been that Congress was naturally disposed 
to prepare for war, and, having learned the unspeakable cost of failure to 
prepare for war, was still more disposed to prepare for peace. In the un- 
hindered exercise of its constitutional functions. Congress would have 
done both. 

With the return to constitutional government under Republican spon- 
sorship, we mean to restore co-ordinated activities and congressional 
responsibility. There will be no trespass of the Executive on the consti- 
tutional rights of Congress, there will be no surrender to Congress of the 
constitutional powers of the Executive. 

Reflectively contemplating a seven-year period of fine words, much 
dictation, tinkering with business, and unwarranted assumption, I con- 
fess little wonder the Democratic Party complains about a Senate "oli- 
garchy." 

Of Course, They Are Irritated 

The Senate "oligarchy," as they call it, and the "oligarchy" of the 
House of Representatives, forced them toward efficiency in making war 

166 



and forced them toward some efficiency, though much belated, in recon- 
struction for peace, and interfered to stay the prodigal waste of the tax- 
payers' money, and prevented America from being caught in the snares 
and tangles of their blundering in Paris. Of course they are irritated be- 
cause representative government — that safeguard of our republic — got 
in their way. If they were quite frank about it, they would speak with 
equal irritation about another "oligarchy" — an "oligarchy" which they 
never consulted much — the will of the American people. 

It is a strange and deplorable thing that the control of the Democratic 
Party has fallen into hands that even now are reaching out in their "per- 
fect accord" to perpetuate the condition of extreme centralization from 
which America has suffered, to perpetuate the narcotic of phrases by 
which American citizenship was to be lulled into inactivity. What would 
Thomas Jefferson say to this? What do those Democrats who have 
looked upon their party as one intrusted with the safeguarding of local 
rights say to it? I think that they, with us, contemplating the precipice 
toward which these years of autocratic bungling have led us, will see that 
it is not only a precipice over which our prosperity may be flung, but over 
which sound American representative government might also be dragged 
and that they, with the great mass of Americans, will say: "We have 
had enough." 

When Americans say, as they do say, "America First," they mean no 
one-man power, but our America as a people whose will is expressive 
through their representative government. They mean a nation of people 
whose citizenship is based upon a willingness of one to serve all, and not 
upon a program of herding into selfish groups, whose slogan is — • "What 
can I get?" They mean that "America First" is a spirit by which are 
preserved the rights of the one man, or the one group, or the one locality, 
only by a watchfulness by that individual, by that group, or by that 
locality that the welfare of all America shall be preserved. 
Broad National Party 

I have listened with much interest to Governor Stephens' suggestions 
touching the interests of the west coast in this campaign. It is gratifying 
to realize that I have, in utterances heretofore made, anticipated much 
of what he has set forth. It happens that a communication from Califor- 
nia has afforded an occasion for my declaration in favor of adequate pro- 
tection to the very interests in whose behalf Governor Stephens has de- 
manded it, and generally for a tariff policy aimed to care for all American 
production which makes for self reliance and our common good fortune. 

With the subjects of reclamation, development, and water power, I 
dealt in my address on Governors' day, and I have found that Governor 
Stephens' views coincide with my own, and also with those of many men 

167 



of all sections, who have expressed gratifying approval of such interpre- 
tation of our platform as I have given expression. As to the policy of en- 
couraging the merchant marine, I have been quoted as entertaining views 
in harmony with those stated by Governor Stephens; while in the matter 
of full naval guarantees on the Pacific it seems hardly possible that there 
will be any disagreement among members of our party, always eager to 
maintain the security of the country. Similarly, it is pleasing to observe 
that what Governor Stephens has said about wise, constructive encour- 
agement to agiiculture, is in complete agreement with what I said a few 
days ago in Minnesota. In short, I can not but feel that the impressive 
agreement between Governor Stephens' statement in behalf of the Great 
West, and my own understanding of the party's declarations of policy, 
constitute a fine testimony to the fact that the Republican Party is truly 
the broad, national party, whose policies and program are sweeping and 
inclusive enough to reach the entire nation. 

Four Sets of Obligations 

Today, for example, you have come here from the Pacific coast of 
our country. I do not doubt that Americans on the coast are troubled in 
their minds about the Oriental question, as it is called. That question 
raises every interpretation of our watchword "America First," for it in- 
volves four sets of obligations. It involves our obligations to great for- 
eign powers; it involves the obligations of foreign powers to us; it in- 
volves the obligations of all America toward one group of American 
states, and their peoples. But it also involves the obligations of that 
group of states to the nation. 

There is abundant evidence of the dangers which lurk in racial differ- 
ences. I do not say racial inequalities — I say racial differences. I am ever 
ready to recognize that the civilization of the Orient is older than ours, 
that her peoples have their proud and honorable traditions. 

In spite of the honor of these Oriental peoples and in spite of their con- 
tributions to the world's advancement, it is conceivable that they may 
be so different in racial characteristics or in manner of life or practice 
from other peoples of equal honor and achievement, that no matter wheth- 
er it be on the soil of one or on the soil of the other, these differences, with 
out raising any question of inferiority, superiority or inequality, may 
create, as I believe they have created upon our Pacific coast, without 
blame to either side, a friction that must be recognized. The Nation owes 
it to the Pacific coast to recognize that fact. The Nation owes it to the 
Pacific coast states to stand behind them, in necessary measures consis- 
tent with our national honor, to relieve them of their difficulties. 

168 



American in Every Sympathy 

The problems incident to racial differences must be accepted as one 
existing in fact and must be adequately met for the future security and 
tranquility of our people. We have learned during the anxieties of World 
War the necessity of making the citizenship of this Republic not only 
American in heart and soul, but also American in every sympathy and 
every aspiration. 

No one can tranquilly contemplate the future of this Republic with- 
out an anxiety for abundant provision for admission to our shores of only 
the immigrant who can be assimilated and thoroughly imbued with the 
American spirit. 

From the beginning of the Republic America has been a haven to the 
oppressed and the aspiring from all the nations of the earth. We have 
opened our doors freely and have given to the peoples of the world who 
came to us the fullness of American opportunity and political liberty. 
We have come to that stage of our development where we have learned 
that the obligations of citizenship, of necessity, must be assumed by 
those who accept the grant of American opportunity. From this time on 
we are more concerned with the making of citizens than we are with ad- 
ding to the man-power of industry or the additional human units in our 
varied activities. 

As a people and as a nation, as Governor Stephens has said, we do 
have the moial, the natural and the legal international rights to deter- 
mine who shall or shall not enter into our country and participate in our 
activities. With a new realization of the necessity of developing a soul 
distinctly American in this Republic we favor such modifications of our 
immigration laws, and such changes in our international understandings, 
and such a policy relating to those who come among us, as will guarantee 
to the citizens of this Republic not only assimilability of alien born, but the 
adoption, by all who come, of American standards, economic and other- 
wise, and a full consecration to American practices and ideals. 
American Agriculture 

I find that your presence here gives me opportunity to put before the 
American people, through you, a consideration of profound importance, 
to which I have been giving attention and will continue to give a deserved 
attention. Changes have been taking place in our national life which re- 
quire recognition and study, and none is more important than that which 
has made it necessary for us to assure ourselves that American agricul- 
ture shall be restored to vigor and prosperity. I believe, and have said 
repeatedly, that the agriculture of a nation, and not its industry, its com- 
merce, or its cities, is the nation's backbone. I believe, and I have said 
repeatedly, that we must put the land-owning farmer back on our soil, 

169 



and provide for the loan of the capital when necessary to buy and oper- 
ate farms ; that we must encourage co-operation in the buying by the con- 
sumer and in the selling by the farmer of our food products; that we must 
increase our facilities of roads, railroads, and motor-trucking; that we 
must invite the farmer into our representative and executive branches 
of government to get his counsel and assistance, and I have said that 
these measures were not special privileges for the farmer, but that the 
preservation of our agriculture with suficient prosperity, so that it should 
share equally with industry and have equal ability to pay labor, was not 
only the farmer's business, but everybody's business — the consumer's 
business, the city dweller's business and the vital concern of every one 
who wants to have for himself and his children three meals a day. 

All Are Interested 

Because the safety and prosperity of the farmers of this country are 
our own safety and prosperity and permanence, no man, woman or child 
in the United States can fail to have an interest in protecting our basic 
industry — that of agriculture — ^wherever protection is necessary by the 
proper use of tariff regulation. 

The time has come when we are ceasing to be a food exporting nation, 
and we must look well to guaranteeing that we shall be self-sustaining. 
A failure to be self-sustaining in agriculture, in our food supply, will mean 
the weakness which afflicted and threatened one or more of our great 
alies in the World War. Failure to be self-sustaining would be a menace 
to us in war, and a menace to us in peace. We have adequate national and 
international reasons for keeping alive our necessary agricultural indus- 
tries when they are threatened by competition from lands of cheap labor 
or new and exploited soil, by a protective duty upon our imports of food. 
And, of course, I use the word agriculture in its broader sense, including 
horticulture. 

A Case In Point 

I think a case in point is your own citrus and other fruit industries of 
California. America must ask herself if she will allow these industries to 
be threatened in their very existence by the invasion of foreign-grown 
fruits cultivated, in some cases, under a subsidy given by a foreign govern- 
ment, by labor which knows nothing of our own American standards of 
living. My answer is that just as the fruit growers of California are wil- 
ing to put America first, so must America be first in upholding their ef- 
forts, and that if to save this or any other worthy and developing agri- 
cultural industry of America, tariff protection is necessary, then tariff 
protection must be given. 

I mark out the example of the California agricultural industry not 
only because you are Californians, but because you are Americans, and 

170 



because the preservation of our agriculture is a vital, all-American inter- 
est, and above all, the interest of the consumer. 

It may well be that a long list of our farm products will require a 
Republican protective tariff policy. There is an increasing menace to 
our production of a number of farm products in the opening of those 
countries which can produce under extensive methods with labor cheaper 
than our own. 

Invading Our Markets 

Manchuria, South Africa, the Argentine, Canada, Siberia, Australia 
New Zealand, may, in the advancing years, invade our markets and 
under-bid our farmers. In the case of Canada, wheat; Argentine, corn; 
cane sugar from tropical islands, and beet sugar from Europe, rice from 
the Orient, beans and peas from Manchuria, meat from South America 
and other imports may threaten the life of our own production. It will 
be necessary to give full and adequate tariff protection to those industries. 

But I point out to you this fact — and I will always bear it in my own 
mind — the Republican protection of specific American agricultural in- 
dustries must not be based upon any group or class which,. either by the 
imposition or removal of rates of duty, thinks it will profit. Our protec- 
tion by the tariff of agricultural industry must be based upon our concern 
for the American manufacturer, the American farmer and the American 
consumer. We are acting to safeguard and balance the interest of all — • 
that, indeed, in applying protective duties or removing them, we are 
acting with full conscience of the rights of all at home and abroad — that 
we are acting for "America First!" 

Spirit of California 

Let me say to you Californians, and to all of this company of Ameri- 
cans today, I like the spirit of California. One gets it first in the story of 
Mission days, then in the romance of stalwart men in revealing the min- 
eral wealth of hill and valley, in the triumph of irrigation, in the majesty 
of your wonderland, in the confident resolution of your forward-looking 
people. Fit for an empire within your own borders, you give of your con- 
fidence, your resolution, your genius, your spirit — to make the greater 
Republic and share in its triumphs. 

Your state sent forward many outriders for the procession of Ameri- 
can advancement. Your state quaffed the cup of confidence when the 
older states clung to the assurances of conservatism, and the Republic 
owes much of its marvel of progress to the onward spirit of the West. You 
in the West went beneath the surface of materialism, touched the springs 
of social justice, and irrigated the desert of human selfishness. You in the 
West led in bringing womanhood into the full participation of citizenship, 
and you in the West gave us the inspiring example of America excelling 

171 



in manhood and womanhood in order to lead in human achievement. 
Out of the East came constitutional government and its guarantees; out 
of the West came the widening of opportunity and new inspiration ; and 
in the blend of these, in the harmonized resolution of the one with the 
glowing spirit of the other comes the impelling thought of America, confi- 
dent of herself, reassured concerning her people, committed to self-gov- 
ernment, fraternizing with the world, but jealous of her freedom and re- 
solved to maintain it. 



STATEMENT BY SENATOR WARREN G. HARD- 
ING ON THE 133d ANNIVERSARY OF CON- 
STITUTION DAY, WHEN THE CONSTI- 
TUTION WAS ADOPTED BY THE 
PHILADELPHIA CONSTITU- 
TIONAL CONVENTION 
SEPTEMBER 16, 1920. 

There is abroad in the land a spirit which seeks to weaken the ad- 
herence of the people to their constitution, and which recklessly chal- 
lenges its worth. It is well, therefore, to have one day in the year set 
apart for the clearing of our vision and the regeneration of our faith. 

To assail or belittle the flag is to invite and incur the just and passion- 
ate resentment of all country-loving men, but the constitution may be 
attacked or disparaged with impunity, and, all too often, with approval; 
and yet the one is but a symbol — though a very precious symbol — 
while the other is the very warp and woof of our national existence. 

It has sometimes been asserted that the constitution was imposed 
upon the many for the benefit of the few. On the contrary, it is the one 
thing, above all other things in our policy, which both in origin and ex- 
pression is universal in its democracy. A statute rests upon the delegated 
authority of a small official group, but the constitution is the direct fiat 
of all the people. It is their mandate — expressing not their wishes, but 
their will — fixing the immovable boundaries of power beyond which their 
servants who administer their government are forbidden to go. It is de- 
clared to be "the supreme law of the land," with which every other law 
and every official act must coincide or fall. 

It is an ever-standing proclamation of the right of the people to speak 
as the sovereign power of the nation, whose body and soul they are, for 
does it not begin with the imperial words: "We, the people of the United 

172 



States, do ordain and establish this constitution for the United States of 
America?" 

If by some tragic dispensation of fate this constitution should cease 
to be, the door would no longer be closed against the stealthy appropria- 
tion of autocratic power, and the gradual absorption of the peoples' 
sovereignty. 

So long as it endures the people will never have a master, but will rule 
themselves, subject to no compelling force but their own authority and 
the will of God. 

Whether it shall endure will be for the men and women of America to 
determine. Respect for it, reverence for it, is not enough. They must 
take hold of its meaning, penetrate its spirit, cleave to its principles, con- 
found its enemies. More dangerous than open repudiation is insidious 
subversion. 

Our people must set themselves to the task of ending the attempt to 
subject the legislative power to the control of the Executive, and of re- 
storing the substance of constitutional government under which the sev- 
eral departments are separate but co-equal, answerable not one to an- 
other, but each to the people from whom alone it derives its power to be 
or to act at all. 



A SPEECH BY SENATOR WARREN G. HARDING 

TO KNIGHTS OF PYTHIAS, MARION, 

OHIO, SEPTEMBER 18, 1920 

Brother Beatty, Brother Knights and Ladies: I did not know when I 
journeyed to join you a little while in your picnic that I was going to be 
called upon to make a speech, but I am getting so much in the habit of 
speech-making that one more does not matter. 

Deep Gratification 

It is more a matter of deep gratification to come and greet you. I do 
not know but what it is rather significant, anyway. I recall that some 
six years ago when I aspired to a place in the United States Senate, the 
Knights of Pythias of Marion gave me a brotherly reception that was 
attended by the distinguished brother who has just presented me this 
afternoon, and there was an augury in it that turned out very fortunately 
afterward. Whether you are of my party or not, I am willing to believe 
that the attendance here and the presentation by Mr. Beatty means 
something of success just a little bit later on. 

173 



If I were to enter upon a discussion of any length this afternoon, I 
rather think I should talk of American affairs from the viewpoint of a 
member of our fraternity. I could take the teachings of the order of 
Knights of Pythias and apply them to the affairs of the American nation. 
And if we could make those teachings effective in every department of 
the government and in the practice of citizenship, we could make the 
ideal nation and we could establish the most ideal conditions on the face 
of the earth. 

About Fraternity 

Humanity is thinking a great deal nowadays about fraternity; not 
only a fraternity of citizenship, but a fraternity of nations. I believe in 
that. I believe that the nations which have been brought to a new sen- 
sitiveness of conscience through the suffering and sacrifices and horrors 
of war ought to co-operate together in fraternity for the establishment 
of a better state of being for mankind. And yet, curiously enough, you 
knights will understand one thing that makes me hesitant about accepting 
the proposal made for our country, the lesson which was taught to me 
very memorably in the second degree of this order. You knights know 
very well that we are taught to be sure before we go ahead. At any rate, 
I have a very distinct recollection of such a lesson when I was initiated. 
So in playing America's part in the progress to a new fraternity I want 
to be sure for our own country. And because a knight is cautious it takes 
nothing from his knighthood, and if America is prudent and makes sure 
of its own nationality before it enters into the covenant of internation- 
ality, that does not mean that America is going to play a lesser part, a 
less noble part in the contribution of our own country to the progress of 
mankind. 

An Abiding Conviction 

I like to say to you, you of my own fraternity and you of my own 
home town, just as I said to a delegation of Americans of foreign birth 
and foreign parentage this morning, I have an abiding conviction that 
America can play her greatest part in the furtherance of mankind by 
first making sure of the character of our citizenship at home, and then 
give to the world the American example rather than the word of a re- 
public assuming to meddle in the affairs of the nations of the earth. 

I would not have our country hold aloof, and I do not hark back to 
the insistent teaching of the founders of the Republic who preached aloof- 
ness. World conditions have changed. Communication has brought us 
in contact with distant lands, and there is a fellowship throughout the 
world we have never known before. And I am not sure but that in our 
own developing civilization we have come to understand the finer at- 
tributes of life better than we understood them in the past. I know there 

174 



I 



is no one in America who would not have this great, strong Republic play 
its full part in not only promoting and preserving the peace of the world, 
but in contributing of American good fortunes to the elevation of man- 
kind. But, that like the practice of knighthood, is not a written obliga- 
tion ; that is a spirit which we are taught. While I want America to do its 
share, I do not want somebody else, across the sea, to tell us what to do 
or how to do it. 

Bit of Clever Diplomacy 

I am thinking of one particular instance. I know how appealing it 
was when America was asked to take the mandate for Armenia. There 
was a bit of clever diplomacy in that. Armenia had been a land of suffer- 
ing and privation and starvation and massacre. Her people are a Chris- 
tian people and had been persecuted largely because of their Christian 
faith. No people in the world suffered as they did in the war, though 
they were not a combatant nation. So, in the development of the new 
ideal internationalism, Armenia was to be reduced and come under the 
mandate of some of the stronger powers, and the suggestion was that this 
Republic should accept sponsorship for Armenia. It was thought that 
would appeal to Christian America. So it did. But, curiously enough, 
the nations of the Old World, which gathered up the territory about 
Armenia — Britain on the one hand and France on the other, and Greece 
in small part — took everything that was desirable about that long suffer- 
ing land, and then handed to us the problem of taking care of that un- 
fortunate people. 

In order to force us in they withdrew their troops and said : " If Amer- 
ica does not send her troops here we are leaving these people to perish." 
By that process they sought to involve us in an obligation some 5,000 or 
6,000 miles away. But America did not go in. Because we have no real 
sponsorship except that natural desire of humanity to help fellow beings. 
We had no commercial interests, we had no territorial interests to guard. 
So I said for one — and spoke for you of Ohio, I am sure — we want to give 
of American bounty, American generosity and American sympathy. We 
were giving $1,000,000 a month out of the pockets of the people of this 
Republic to keep that people from starvation. 

Except One Thing 

We want to give them of the morale of this republic, and we want to 
give them of everything we can except one thing, which we will not do, 
and that is involve America 5,000 or 6,000 miles away and plant sons of 
this Republic there in the gateway between Occident and Orient to in- 
volve us in every conflict of the Old World. We in the United States do 
not want that, I don't care who asks it. We mean to play our part if the 
rights of America are in danger, or if American honor is at stake, aye we 

175 



will be ready to go with our sons anywhere under the order of this Govern- 
ment. But we are not willing to be involved in such a thing under the 
order of foreign powers to protect their territory. 

I am infinitely more concerned about promoting the spirit of fraternity 
at home. We of America have made a great Republic. We have developed 
material America, and we found out in the World War that we needed 
spiritual America. I never can forget a development during the early 
days, aye during the days prior to the war in the latter part of February, 
1917, when the Senate was discussing the enactment of the armed ship 
bill. That is, the bill which was to provide for arming our merchant ships 
for their protection against submarine warfare. A citizen of Marion — 
and I knew him well — wrote me and said: "Senator, why are you so 
anxious about protecting American rights? Don't you know, sir, there 
is no such thing as a distinctly American citizen?" This from an Ameri- 
can. When I answered him, I said: "Maybe it is true, as you have writ- 
ten me, that there is no such thing as a distinctly American citizen, but 
if that startling statement be true, then, in God's name, out of this tur- 
moil of the world, out of this travail of civilization let us have a real Amer- 
ican come from Columbia's loins to leave us a race of Americans here- 
after." 

Brought to Realization 

So the World War brought us to a realization that we had developed 
material America, we had prospered, we had advanced in education, in 
art, in world influence and had attained a high place in world eminence, 
and yet although we are a blend of the peoples of the Old World, we had 
given very little consideration to the development of American spirit. 
And I am preaching the gospel, fellow knights and ladies, from this time 
on of the development of an American soul; from this time on I am 
preaching the gospel of the maintenance of American spirit, of the de- 
velopment from this time on of a fraternity and a loyalty that will make 
us all, no matter whence we came, American in every heartbeat. 

You can not go on in any other way. Here in America we have no 
racial entity. We are a blend or a mixture or an association of all the na- 
tions of the earth, but, unhappily, up to the time of the war we were very 
much a collocation of peoples; but from this time on we want to be a 
fraternity of Americans. From this time on we want to continue to em- 
phasize the necessity for the elevation of the standard of American citi- 
zenship, not in spirit alone, but an elevation of the conditions under 
which men and women live. 

We in Marion little know of some of the conditions which exist. I 
myself am ashamed of the tardiness with which I have come to an under- 
standing of the narrowness and insufficiency of life in many of the great 

176 



cities where people live in crowded tenements without the privilege of 
knowing the American life that we know in communities like ours. Some- 
how I want to preach the gospel of fraternity, and fraternity in turn to 
apply itself to that social justice and that bestowal of American rights, 
privileges and fortunes of all America to make us ever better people, with 
common aspiration and a common devotion; aye, and a common conse- 
cration not only to live for and support this Republic of ours, but to be 
for it, first in thought, first in act and first in devotion. 



A SPEECH BY SENATOR WARREN G. HARDING 

DELIVERED ON CONSTITUTION DAY, 

SEPTEMBER 17, 1920, AT MARION, OHIO 

Fellow Citizens of the Republic: — 'America uncovers today in obser- 
vance of the 133d anniversary of the birthday of the nation. I do not 
say the birthday of American freedom, which we celebrate variously, 
though always patriotically, on July 4, in reverence for the Declaration 
of Independence, but this day is the anniversary of the literal birthday 
of our American nation. 

I can never forget that, in the beginning, independence was one 
thing and nationality quite another. The Declaration of Independence 
was the proclamation of the representatives of the colonies, animated 
by a common purpose and aroused by a cortimon oppression. They were 
brought into a comradeship of suffering, privation and war, and the 
magnificent Declaration of Independence was the bold, clear state- 
ment of human rights by an association of fearless men who knew they 
were speaking for liberty. It might have been the declaration of any 
people anywhere who had equal reasons and like aspirations, because 
it is the most comprehensive bill of rights in all the annals of civilized 
government. Under the declaration, the colonies fought for freedom, 
and then in the chaos of victory they turned to nationality as the neces- 
sary means of its preservation. In short, freedom inspired and nation- 
ality was invoked in order to preserve. 

No Distinctive American Spirit 

We take it all so much as a matter of course now, that we little ap- 
preciate the marvel of the beginning. One may well wonder that the 
colonists succeeded in their warfare for independence, because they were 
battling against the commanding power of the Old World. They were 
little prepared, they were lacking in resources and they knew nothing of 
concord, except in the universal desire for freedom. It is well to re- 

177 



member that the colonies were not imbued with any thought of a com- 
mon purpose except for freedom itself. There was no distinctly Amer- 
ican spirit which was common to them all. They were strung along 
the shores of the Atlantic ocean and widely separated by miles of dis- 
tance and by leagues of primeval forests and they were much more 
separated by the diversity of the origin of their population, by difTer- 
ences in religion, in ideals and manners of life. The whole thought of 
their association was that of an offensive and defensive alliance against 
foreign aggression, and there was no suggestion of a national feeling or 
aspiration before, during or immediately following the successful war 
for independence. 

Indeed, there were conflicting interests of sections and states, there 
were wide diversities of opinion, especially with respect to the merits 
of royalism and democracy, there were envies and jealousies, there 
were differences of methods and varieties of practices — all of which 
made a situation difficult to commit the free colonies to anything more 
than the futile articles of confederation. 

The Hand of Destiny 

Almost a decade passed before the dream of erecting upon this 
new continent a great and strong nation "dedicated to liberty" became 
a compelling vision, and forced its way upon the waking, active hours 
of the more progressive and thoughtful men of the colonies. It is even 
true that a fundamental federal law was not in contemplation by most 
of the delegates who assembled in the first convention, and many of those 
who attended would not have been present had they known that such 
a work was to be undertaken. Surely a supreme federal government 
was not in the minds of a majority of the delegates. In that convention 
were men of every type of mind. There were puritan and Cavalier, 
Quaker and Atheist, autocrat and peasant, Yankee and slave-holder. 
Among them there were, even as there are now, the extremists who 
favored autocracy or the commune. Under other names, but easily 
identified with present-day prototypes, they had the reactionary, Bol- 
shevik, Socialist, Republican, Democrat, Prohibitionist, Liberal and 
what-not. 

It was difficult timber out of which to erect the enduring temple 
of the Republic, which I think it worth our while to recall to lead us to 
greater appreciation. I can well believe that the hand of destiny must 
have directed them; and the supreme accomplishment was wrought be- 
cause, God, Himself, had a purpose to serve in the making of the new 
Republic. 

Contribution of Many Minds 

The formulated work of the convention of 1787 was not the contribu- 

178 



tion, even in fundamentals, of one mind. The best men in the colonies 
were among the delegates, and it is inspiring to recall that the president 
of the convention was George Washington. It is equally pleasing to 
note that this great man, born to wealth and position, allied by blood 
to the titled aristocracy of England, said to be the richest American of 
his time, commander-in-chief of a victorious army which idolized him, 
and who had put resolutely away the offer of a crown offered by men who 
could have delivered it, stood steadfastly in this convention, as always 
for a republican form of government. 

The debates of the constitutional convention show that every known 
form of government had its advocates; that every proposition pre- 
sented was discussed, amended, revised and reviewed, again and again. 
The result was in every instance, compromise or conviction, as must 
be the case when the collective judgment and not the individual will is 
sought. 

There were many times when it seemed that the convention must ad- 
journ in impotence. The strain upon mental and physical and nervous 
energies was exhausting. Public feeling ran high and fear of a war be- 
tween the colonies was justifiable. It was the venerable Franklin, sage 
and patriot, who at a critical time, asked the convention to cease from 
its labors, lay aside its differences, and reverently and trustfully invoke 
the Divine guidance. And I am one who firmly believes that that prayer 
was answered. 

First in All History 

Out of this chaos of opinion, out of this rivalry and conflict, out of 
this ferment of New World liberty, came the great experiment, the first 
written constitution evolved in the history of the world. It was not the 
product of any one mind. I have always thought Hamilton to have 
been the inspiring genius, though Madison contributed very largely, 
and Franklin's wisdom was never ignored. Probably no conclusion 
could ever have been reached without the compelling efforts of Wash- 
ington. It was not the matching of minds except in the spirited debate. 
Such a document was of necessity the result of a meeting of minds in 
unselfish conscientious and truly patriotic purposes, I believe such a 
meeting of minds in high purpose to be the most effective agency possible 
in the conduct of public affairs, and such a meeting of minds will be re- 
sumed if I am elected president. 

It has been said by those who disparage our government that our con- 
stitution contains nothing new fundamentally. That might be said 
of the Sermon on the Mount; it might be said, and truthfully, of the com- 
ponents of any plan, or theory or practice in government, or science or 
religion. But in combination, in essence and results it was new. 

179 



Wonder and Admiration of All 

William Pitt said of the American constitution : " It will be the wonder 
and admiration of all future generations and the model of all future 
constitutions." 

Gladstone said: "It is the greatest piece of work ever struck off at 
a given time by the brain and purpose of man." 

James Bryce, the most distinguished and unprejudiced commentator 
upon the constitution said: "History shows few instruments which in 
so few words lay down equally momentous rules on a vast range of 
matters of the highest importance and complexity. And for illustra- 
tion, he observes that our federal constitution with its amendments 
may be read aloud in twenty - three minutes; that it is only about half 
as long as Paul's first epistle to the Corinthians — and only one-fortieth 
part as long as the Irish land act of 1881. 

It was Pitt who spoke with the spirit of prophecy, for our constitu- 
tion in essentials has been the model for every constitution formulated by 
civilized peoples since its enactment, and every government but our own 
has materially changed in form since ours was established by the adoption 
of the constitution of 1787. 

What Did It Do? 

And what did this constitution do? It provided a practical, workable, 
popular, central government upon the representative republican plan, 
while reserving to the people in the states and their political subdivisions 
the control of their local affairs. It provided a government of checks and 
balances, which made the will of the majority determinable and effective, 
but protected the rights of the minority. 

It was written in six months to meet an impending crisis, and it was 
written to provide a central government for the people of thirteen scat- 
tered colonies, having a total population smaller than now lives within 
the confines of several of our cities, and yet it was so soundly conceived 
and so masterfully written that its provisions fully meet the actual gov- 
ernmental needs of a hundred and twenty millions of people, and to 
meet conditions which are revealed in an experience of a hundred and 
thirty-three years — and, I believe, of all the years to come. 

It provides for a free government of free men. Under it there is 
freedom of thought and expression, freedom of worship, freedom of 
action within the law and the rights of others. 

Under it there is no reason for revolt, no necessity for resort to 
violence. Any cause which can enlist a majority of the free, untram- 
melled electors of this land may, under the constitution, win its domi- 
nance. The will of the people, expressed at the ballot boxes of the Repub- 

180 



lie, can change our government, as well as its policies, may even abolish 
the constitution itself. 

Less Tolerant of Lawlessness 

This fact should make us even less tolerant of the lawless men who 
seek to establish, by threat or violence, the rule of minorities or of classes, 
which inevitably becomes autocracy or anarchy. 

The patriots of 1787 devised a government to do the things so won- 
derfully and graphically expressed in the preamble: 

"We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more 
perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide 
for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the 
blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and estab- 
lish this constitution of the United States of America." 

Can any of you, my friends, conceive a clearer statement of a noble 
purpose? Can you suggest the insertion or elision of a word or phrase 
which would improve it; can any one name a single ideal of popular 
government which is not covered by its beautifully concise, but com- 
prehensive, phraseology? 

And the constitutional provisions are as clearly stated and as patri- 
otically conceived. Let us look for a moment into the fundamentals of 
our constitution. 

The Three Departments 

It provides for three departments of government: the legislative, 
the executive and the judicial — the legislative to make the laws, the execu- 
tive to administer and enforce them, the judicial to interpret and con- 
strue them. 

The legislative power was vested in Congress, and the provisions re- 
lating to Congress are wonderful in far-seeing wisdom of the consti- 
tution writers. It was provided that Congress was to be composed 
of a Senate and a House of Representatives. The latter was to be the 
popular body. Its members to be elected by the people every two years. 
They were to be chosen from districts erected upon the basis of total 
population. This was intended to give equality of representation 
throughout the country. These districts, under the proposed appor- 
tionment, were to be small enough so as to have only one or few domi- 
nant interests; this would bring all interests under consideration in the 
house. The members were to be elected for two years — thus giving the 
electors frequent opportunity of selecting their representatives and send- 
ing them with fresh mandates from the people. 

To Preserve Minority Rights 

The Senate was intended to be the deliberative body — the check and 
brake upon the wheels of legislation. Its members were to be elected 

181 



from the state by the legislatures thereof and for a term of six years. 
This was to give stability to their positions and remove them from the 
influence of temporary excitements. As the members of the house came 
from districts based on population giving the larger states or communi- 
ties a preponderance of power and strength in that body, the rights of 
the minority — and the smaller states — were safeguarded by a provision 
that every state should be entitled to two members of the senate. Could 
anything be fairer or more practical than these provisions? Under them 
we had in the most practical form the so-called modern idea of the in- 
itiative, referendum and recall. Any district through its representative 
could initiate a bill; the right of petition to Congress was established. 
That gave the initiative. The election of a new Congress every two 
years gave an opportunity for the referendum and recall. 

And it worked. No proposed legislative matter having the support of 
any considerable minority of electors ever failed of introduction or con- 
sideration by Congress. 

Independence of Action 

The "Founding Fathers" were determined to maintain the indepen- 
dence of action of the three departments of government. They provided 
that the president should be elected by persons appointed as electors 
by the states, but they provided also that no member of Congress or of- 
ficer of the government shall be an elector. 

They provided that the president should have the veto over the acts 
of Congress — but they provided that Congress, by a two- thirds vote, 
could nullify his veto. 

In the constitutional convention it was proposed that the judiciary 
should be appointed by the senate — but it was held that this would 
place the judges under obligations to the Senate. Then it was proposed 
that they should be appointed by the president, and it was held that 
this would make the judges subservient to the executive and give him 
power to override the courts and set aside the will of the people as ex- 
pressed in law. And so the convention provided that the judges should 
be appointed by the president with the advice and consent of the Senate. 

Responsibility Divided 

At first the power to make treaties, with other governments, was 
proposed to be conferred upon the Senate, but it was agreed finally that 
there should be a division of responsibility and power. And despite 
the construction placed upon the language of this provision. I ask your 
attention to its statement: "He (the president) shall have power, by and 
with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided 
two-thirds of the Senators present concur." Can any American wonder 
that members of the Senate, in complying with their solemn oath of 

182 



office, insisted upon safeguarding America when the president proposed to 
submerge our nationality in a super-government of the world? 

Looking back now, it is easy to understand that the fathers of the 
Republic had no reasonable conception of the mighty possibilities in 
its development, nor did they begin to appreciate the magnitude of the 
great thing they accomplished in writing the fundamental law, and 
yet somehow a sense of the tremendous importance must have been 
upon them. Brancroft wrote: "The members were awestruck at the 
result of their councils. The constitution was a nobler work than they 
had believed it possible to devise." 

Too Close for Full Realization 

Our nation is one and one-third century old, which is but a very brief 
period in the story of mankind. There are some rare instances in which 
three generations in one family stretch from the immortal beginning 
to the wonderful now. I have, myself, in these later years, met great- 
grandchildren of those who participated in the making of the consti- 
tution, yet in that stretch of time we have grown to the greatest repub- 
lic on the face of the earth, and the work which the fathers did in their 
day still lives in full force as the fundamental law of the oldest living 
Republic. 

This makes it easy to understand why the constitution makers did not 
appreciate the greatness of their achievement. They stood too close 
for full realization, but we may contemplate it today in the revealing 
light of history and from the viewpoint of American accomplishments. 
One by one European autocracies have yielded, until, in the last great 
onrush of democracy, practically all nations have been engulfed, even 
steadfast and solid Britain has shaken ofif the control which her aristo- 
cracy wielded for centuries, and has raised her house of commons to 
practically unrestricted authority. 

America alone among the great nations of the world has undergone 
no change or vicissitude which in itself has not proved to be strengthen- 
ing, both materially and spiritually. An anchor our constitution has been 
called, but if it be so regarded it can not be held a rigid, immovable 
thing, but rather as a sheet anchor, serving only to keep the great ship 
safe and steady on her course; because there is nothing inelastic in 
our basic law. Almost immediately the "Bill of Rights" for men was 
added and now, by the votes of men, the yet more striking "Bill of 
Rights" for women has been adopted. 

Never Failed the World 

During all these years the constitution has never failed America and 
despite heedless assertions to the contrary which occasionally reach 
our ears, America has never failed the world. Not only has she afforded 

183 



a safe refuge and unrestricted opportunity to oppressed beings every- 
where, but by showing that "liberty with law is fire on the hearth, but 
liberty without law is fire on the floor," she has proven democracy itself. 
Far more by force of example than by force of arms, she has shattered 
the idols of monarchy and brought thrones crashing to the ground. And 
now, as ever before when distracted peoples are in the throes of a rebirth 
of nations, she stands ready, and let us hope, will soon be in a position, 
through earnest co-operation of all branches of our government, to lend a 
helping hand, but she herself must point the way. To "America First," 
as pledged by the individual, I would add simply as addressed to the na- 
tion, "To thine own self be true." 

How can we then, in reason and with confidence, make sure of ful- 
filling our mission on earth? The first step is plain. We must strictly 
maintain and scrupulously observe, in letter and in spirit, the mandates 
of the constitution of the United States. We are not doing so now. 
We are at war, not alone technically with Germany, but actually with 
the little helpless republics of our own hemisphere. 

There's a Difference 

There is the difference. The wars against the Central Powers were de- 
creed by Congress in the exercise of authority conferred upon it by our 
fundamental law, but the wars upon our neighbors to the south were 
made and are still being waged, though never declared, through the 
usurpation by the executive of powers not only never bestowed upon 
him, but scrupulously withheld by the constitution. 

Of the fact there can be no question. It is admitted, even boasted 
of, by the Democratic candidate for vice-president, between whom, 
if elected, and the presidency itself would be but a single life. 

"You know," he said to the people of Montana, as his words were 
quoted by the press, "I have had something to do with the running 
of a couple of little republics. The fact is that I wrote Hayti's consti- 
tution myself, and, if I do say it, I think it is a pretty good constitution. 
Until last week I had two votes in the league assembly; now Secretary 
Daniels has them." 

First Official Admission 

To the best of my information, this is the first official admission of 
the rape of Hayti and San Domingo by the present administration. To 
my mind, moreover, it is the most shocking assertion that ever emanated 
from a responsible member of the government of the United States. 
Talk about self-determination! Talk about American ideals! Talk about 
equal rights for small nations! Before confession of deeds such as this, 
what becomes of the smooth rhetoric of vaunted righteousness to which 
we have so long been accustomed? 

184 



True, we know little of the conduct of these wars of "occupation" 
and the imposition of laws upon our helpless neighbors. The censor- 
ship is no less strict than it was during the secret conferences and con- 
spiracies in Paris. Congress has not been informed. The people are 
kept in ignorance. But gradually the torch of truth is illuminating those 
dark places. Practically all we know now is that thousands of native 
Haytians have been killed by American Marines, and that many of our 
own gallant men have sacrificed their lives at the behest of an executive 
department, in order to establish laws drafted by an assistant secretary 
of the navy, to secure a vote in the league and to continue at the point 
of the bayonet a military domination which at this moment requires 
the presence of no less than 3,000 of our armed men on that foreign soil 

Intent of Law Subverted 

Other disquieting phases of this unprecedented performance on the 
part of the administration need not now be considered. My present pur- 
pose is served by indicating the lengths to which a subtle autocracy, 
professing publicity but practicing secrecy, has already gone in sub- 
verting the plain intent of our basic law. 

Vastly more important and far more menacing to our own popular 
institutions than even this distressing example is the proposal to trans- 
fer, by indirection, the chief prerogative of one department of the gov- 
ernment to another. As all are well aware, the constitution vests in con- 
gress exclusively the power to declare war, but it also declares that 
a duly-executed treaty "shall be the supreme law of the land." Prece- 
dent and practice, moreover, make it incumbent upon one department 
of the government to make effective any agreement duly entered into 
under given authority by another. 

Under Article X of the Versailles covenant, now being subjected to a 
solemn referendum, it would be the appointee and representative of the 
President, not of Congress nor of the people, who would either acquiesce 
in or reject a proposition in the council of the league to uphold by force 
of arms the cause of one power against another. 

It comes down, then, to this: Do the American people want to trans- 
fer the war-making power in practice from the Congress to the presi- 
dent? That is what acceptance of Article X of the covenant as the su- 
preme law of the land would do. Whether such acceptance would vio- 
late the letter of the constitution is perhaps a question. That it would 
violate the spirit of the constitution there can be no question in any hon- 
est mind in all the land. 

Constitution or Covenant? 

The constitution or the covenant — that, my countrymen, is the para- 
mount issue. The two are irreconcilable. We can not be governed from 

185 



both Geneva and Washington. We can not follow our present chief 
magistrate without forsaking the "Father of Our Country." We can 
not pin our faith to hazy visions of the future without putting out of 
mind the stern realties of the past. We can and shall do right, as we al- 
ways have done right, by our fellowmen the world over, but the question 
immediately confronting us is our own, to be decided by ourselves. 

Under the constitution we have prospered and developed; under the 
constitution we have kept alive the watch-fires of freedom and have 
maintained the open door of liberty. Under the constitution we have seen 
millions of people, self-governed, self -con trolled, work out their des- 
tiny in ordered liberty. Under the constitution we have worshipped 
God in accordance with conscience without let or hindrance, and we 
have seen the reins of power transferred from hand to hand, in bloodless 
revolution, at the behest of the people. 

Under the constitution we have welcomed the oppressed or unfor- 
tunate of every land, and shared with those who desired and deserved our 
heritage and citizenship. 

Equal Voice and Vote ^ 

Under our constitution, with the amendments so readily made when 
major settlement is evoked, every man and every woman may have an 
equal voice and vote in the government which he helps establish, main- 
tain and direct. Under it the rights of each and all are guaranteed. 
Every citizen is made, so far as our imperfect human nature permits, 
safe in his person, his property, his rights of every kind. 

No honest man, who loves his kind, can ask more than that. When 
he does not receive that, the fault is all or partly his own, and flows not 
from failure of plan of government, but from failure of performance. 

I have said that I hold this to be the birthday of our nation. I know 
that we date our independence to the memorable July day in 1776 
when the bell of Independence Hall "rang out liberty" to all the peoples 
of the world. I know that the confederation of colonies was the great, 
the essential step toward the consolidation of victories of the revolution, 
but it was the ratification of the inspired constitution of 1787 that first 
established us as a nation. I want it to abide; I want it to impel us on- 
ward; I want the Republic for which it was conceived; and I want the 
Republic governed in America, under the constitution. 

For myself, I have only this to say: Before entering on the execu- 
tion of my office, if you elect me to be your president, I shall be re- 
quired solemnly to swear that I will, "to the best of my ability, preserve 
protect and defend the constitution of the United States." 

I take that oath now, my countrymen, on this the one hundred and 
thirty-third anniversary of the birth of the ark of our covenant of 
freedom. 

186 



A SPEECH BY SENATOR WARREN G. HARDING 
TO DELEGATION OF CITIZENS OF FOR- 
EIGN BIRTH, MARION, OHIO, 
SEPTEMBER 18, 1920 

My Countrymen: You are, in large part, men and women of foreign 
birth, but I do not address you as men and women of foreign birth; I 
address you as Americans, and through you I would Hke to reach all the 
American people. I have no message for you which is not addressed to 
all the American people, and, indeed, I would consider it a breach of 
courtesy to you and a breach of my duty as candidate for high office to 
address myself to any group or special interest or to any class or race or 
creed. We are all Americans, and all true Americans will say, as I say, 
"America First!" 

Let us all pray that America shall never become divided into classes 
and shall never feel the menace of hyphenated citizenship! Our upper- 
most thought today comes of the awakening which the World War gave 
us. We had developed the great American Republic; we had become rich 
and powerful, but we had neglected the American soul. When the war 
clouds darkened Europe and the storm threatened our own country, we 
found America torn with conflicting sympathies and prejudices. They 
were not unnatural; indeed they were, in many cases, very excusable, 
because we had not promoted the American spirit; we had not insisted 
upon full and unalterable consecration to our own country — our country 
by birth or adoption. We talked of the American melting pot over the 
fires of freedom, but we did not apply that fierce flame of patriotic devo- 
tion needed to fuse all into the pure metal of Americanism. 

American Neglect 

I do not blame the foreign born. Charge it to American neglect. We 
proclaimed our liberty, but did not emphasize the essentials to its preser- 
vation. We boasted our nationality, but we did not magnify the one 
great spirit essential to perfect national life. 

I speak for the fullest American devotion ; not in putting aside all the 
tenderer and dearer attributes of the human heart, but in the consecra- 
tions of citizenship. It is not possible, and it ought not to be expected, 
that Americans of foreign birth shall stifle love for kinsfolk in the lands 
from which they came. It would be a poor material for the making of an 
American if one of foreign birth would, or could, be insensible to the for- 
tunes of father and mother, or grandfathers and grandmothers, of broth- 
ers and sisters; if he could be insensible to the fortunes of the people from 

187 



whom he came. America does not want, and does not ask that. We want 
the finer attributes of humanity in all our citizenship, and we wish these 
lovable traits in foreign-born and American-born. But we do ask all to 
think of "America First;" to serve "America First," to defend "Amer- 
ica First," and plight an unalterable faith in "America First." 
No Hyphenated Americanism 

We are unalterably against any present or future hyphenated Amer- 
icanism. We have put an end to prefixes. The way to unite and blend 
foreign blood in the life stream of America is to put an end to groups; an 
end to classes; an end to special appeal to any of them; an end to particu- 
lar favor for any of them. Let's fix our gaze afresh on the constitution, 
with equal rights to all, and put an end to special favors at home and 
special influence abroad, and think of the American, erect, and confident, 
in the rights of his citizenship. 

I like to think of an America without sectional lines, an America with- 
out class groups. I do not mean the natural fellowship or fraternity, that 
association which comes from wholesome human traits. I am thinking of 
the selfish grouping that made us sectional, and the selfish grouping which 
makes for classes, and the selfish grouping which looks to government to 
promote selfish ends rather than the good of our common country. 

For Our People 

I like to think of an America where every citizen's pride in power and 
resources, in influence and progress, is founded on what can be done for 
our people, all our people; not what we may accomplish to the political 
or national advantage of this or that people in distant lands. 

It was my official duty to sit with the Senate committee on foreign 
relations when it was hearing the American spokesmen for foreign peo- 
ples, during the peace conference at Paris. Under the rules, we could 
give hearing only to Americans, though many whom we had no right to 
hear sought to bring their appeal to the Senate, as though it possessed 
some sense of justice which had no voice in Paris. We heard the impas- 
sioned appeals of Americans of foreign birth on behalf of the lands from 
which they came — where their kinsfolk resided. No one doubted their 
sincerity; no one questioned their right to be interested. But for me there 
was a foreboding, a growing sense of apprehension. 

How can we have American concord; how can we expect American 
unity; how can we escape strife, if we in America attempt to meddle in 
the affairs of Europe and Asia and Africa; if we assume to settle boun- 
daries; if we attempt to end the rivalries and jealousies of centuries of 
Old World strife? It is not alone the menace which lies in involvement 
abroad; it is the greater danger which lies in conflict among adopted 
Americans. 

188 



This is the objection to the foreign policy attempted, not with the ad- 
vice and consent of the Senate, but in spite of warning informally uttered. 
America wants the good will of foreign peoples, and it does not want the 
ill will of foreign-born who have come to dwell among us. 

Nothing Helpful 

Nothing helpful has come from the wilful assumption to direct the 
affairs of Europe. No good of any kind has proceeded from such med- 
ling in Russia. None in the case of Poland. None in the case of the Bal- 
kan states. None in the case of Fiume. On the contrary, the mistaken 
policy of interference has broken the draw-strings of good sense and 
spilled bad counsel and bad manners all over the world. 

That policy, my countrymen, is a bad policy. It is bad enough a- 
broad, but it is even more menacing at home. Meddling abroad tends to 
make Americans forget that they are Americans. It tends to arouse the 
old and bitter feelings of race, or former nationality, or foreign ancestry, 
in the hearts of those who ought never be forced to turn their hearts away 
from undivided loyalty and interest given to "America First." 

The Great Menace 

I want America on guard against that course which naturally tends 
to array Americans against each other. I do not know whether or not 
Washington foresaw this menace when he warned us against entangling 
alliances and meddling abroad, but I see it, and I say to you that all 
America must stand firm against this dangerous and destructive and un- 
American policy. Meddling is not only dangerous to us, because it leads 
us into the entanglements against which Washington warned us, but it 
also threatens an America divided in her own household, and tends to 
drive into groups seeking to make themselves felt in our political life, 
men and women whose hearts are led away from "America First" to 
"Hyphen First!" 

A Warning Sounded 

For Americans who love America, I sound a warning. The time 
might come when a group or groups of men and women of foreign birth 
or foreign parentage, not organized for the interest of America, but or- 
ganized around a resentment against our government interference abroad 
in their land of origin, might press, by propaganda and political hyphen- 
ism, upon our government to serve their own interests rather than the 
interests of all America. It is not beyond possibility that the day might 
come — and may God forbid it! — when an organized hyphenated vote 
in American politics might have the balance of voting power to elect 
our government. If this were true, America would be delivered out of 
the hands of her citizenship, and her control might be transferred to a 
foreign capital abroad. 

189 



Message to All Americans 

I address this warning to you because though it is a message to all 
Americans which you may spread widecast when you leave this spot, 
nevertheless it is of even greater concern to you, who were born on other 
soil, or whose parents were born upon other soil, than it is to any one 
else in all the world. America is peculiarly your America. Men and wo- 
men of foreign blood, indeed, are America. They have come here be- 
cause, under our Republic, grown upon a firm foundation, there is liberty, 
and the light of democracy which shines in the hearts of all mankind. 
America is yours to preserve, not as a land of groups and classes, races 
and creeds, but America, the ONE America! the United States, "Amer- 
ica the Everlasting!" 

Let us all remember, however, that "America First" does not mean 
that the America which we all love and under whose flag we must always 
remain a people united is to be an American blind to the welfare of hu- 
manity throughout the world or deaf to the call of world civilization. 
But our ability to be helpful to mankind and our preparation for leader- 
ship lies in first being secure at home, and mighty in our citizenship. 
Therein lies strength; therein is the source of helpful example. 

It Is Service That Counts 

Let us say it to native-born and to foreign-born — our citizenship 
ought to be founded first upon our sense of service; we must not be de- 
luded by the idea that government is a magic source of benevolence. No 
government can ever give out more resources than its citizens put in. 
Just as good citizenship, whatever its creed, or race, means "America 
First," so also good government means the welfare of all its citizens. The 
welfare of a part of our people is often vital to the welfare of us all. 

When I speak for the American farmer, I am thinking of all the peo- 
ple. When I speak for American labor, I am thinking of all America. 
When I am concerned about prosperous business, I am concerned with 
our common good fortune. They are inseparably linked in any permanent 
progress. 

For Good of All 

With the same interest in a common good, I urge now and shall, with 
increasing conviction, always urge, that America shall give to her citizens 
the benefits of social justice and the conservation of human resources 
which a humane democracy owes to citizenship. I do this, not only in 
behalf of those in whose interest unthinking persons might believe I de- 
sired America to act, but in behalf of all America. This nation of ours is 
the best in the world for all persons to live in, and for all men and women 
to love with all their hearts. Our standards of living are the highest. I 

190 



insist that they shall be kept so. Our standards of humane considera- 
tion for mankind are unexcelled. I insist they shall not only be main- 
tained, but maintained upon deeds rather than upon a foam of words 
and a froth of propaganda. 

American Conscience 

I insist that American conscience recognizes the duty of protecting 
our national health. I insist that it will protect American motherhood, 
and American childhood, and the American home. I insist that it place 
the welfare of the human-being above all else. I insist that it will act, 
not only to give the weak, and those who need protection, and who 
righteously should have social justice, their due, but because the concern 
for the less fortunate is an interest of us all. 

Above all, we must give our attention as a nation, to American child- 
hood, because American childhood is the future citizenship of America. 

Health comes first. The war disclosed that between a fourth and a 
third of our young men in the draft were physically delinquent. Examin- 
ation of our school children in various cities discloses that nearly fifty 
per cent, of them — boys and girls — have physical defects, most of which 
can be remedied if discovered in time. I do not discuss at the moment 
the relation of federal health agencies to local health agencies, but I do 
say that we must insist upon ^n American conscience acting at once to 
raise our health standards, especially as they bear upon the welfare of 
American childhood. 

No Defense Possible 

There can be no defense for working conditions which rob the Amer- 
ican child of its rights, just as there can be no defense of an industrial life 
of a nation or the agricultural life of a nation which so draws away the 
strength of our women that it poisons and weakens motherhood. When 
we make these assertions of national conscience, we do not make them 
for political gain, though it is a fact that the Republican Party has been 
the bulwark in preserving our human resources, but we make them as a 
principle standing above party, and as an American principle and in be- 
half of all America. 

It is impossible, my countrymen, to have an America such as we 
would have her, until there are no failures upon her part to protect Amer- 
ican childhood and American motherhood. The nation, the several 
states and all their communities and all citizens of America must unite 
to prevent the growth in America of sore spots where the equal oppor- 
tunity of every man, woman and child to prove their own worth might 
be taken away from the human individual. 

It has seemed fitting to speak of this matter of social betterment, be- 
cause the greater proportion of our foreign-born Americans have preferred 

191 



our cities and the lure of the factory to the call of the American farm. 
It is not surprising. For association's sake, many of them have accepted 
crowded tenements and privations, and dwelt amid conditions which 
do not permit standing out in the fulness of American opportunity or 
measuring to ideal American standards. We want them to know the 
best America and give their best to America, and in clasping the hand 
of American conscience and freedom, they shall be impelled to give 
America both head and heart in that love and loyalty that makes in 
America a people distinct from all others in surpassing love of country. 



A SPEECH BY SENATOR WARREN G. HARDING 

TO DELEGATION OF G. A. R. VETERANS, 

AND DELEGATION OF CITIZENS FROM 

KENTUCKY AND TENNESSEE, 

SEPTEMBER 20, 1920 

My Countrymen all: This is a very unusual occasion, and you have 
made my heart very glad this morning. I count it a very fine thing that 
we should have present this morning the sons of the state which gave to 
America the immortal Lincoln, under whose inspiration you fought, 
along with these representatives of the Grand Army of the Republic 
and kindred organizations, which gave to America the indissoluble union 
and preserved our nationality. 

Somehow or other I find myself with a new deference, a little higher 
regard for the Grand Army today, if that be possible, than I ever had 
before. We are talking nowadays very much about preservation of Amer- 
ican nationality, and I never speak of it without the full consciousness 
that had it not been for you there would be no nationality today to pre- 
serve. 

And I like to think of the blend of Kentucky and Tennessee with the 
sons of the North who saved the Union. I like to think that in this year 
1920 there are few wounds of the Civil War remaining, there are few 
evidences of sectionalism in our national life; and there is no one who 
regrets the winning of the war by the North and the preservation of this 
wonderful land of ours. 

I like to recall that, after all, there were no very great differences 
between us. Kentucky, as you know was itself divided between the 
North and the South; Kentucky sent her sons to the war for the Union 
as well as to fight on the side of the Confederacy. They had the same 
passion for country in the border states and the southern states that we 

192 



had in the North. I think it was only a misdirected passion for country. 
You know there were two schools of American politics from the very 
beginning. One was the national school and the other was the school of 
states' rights. One school was led by Hamilton and the other by Thomas 
JefTerson. One believed in great national power, a sti'ong confederation; 
the other believed in very limited national pow^r, only for purposes of 
defense. And those two schools of American politics were in conflict 
from the very beginning of the Republic. They \\ aged their warfare with 
ne^'er -ending intensity until it finally culminated in the great Civil War, 
and in that conflict the question was settled and the United States com- 
mitted everlastingly to nationality. In the fires of civil strife, in the con- 
flict of flesh and treasure and blood was burned the dross from the mis- 
directed passion for country in the South and turned the pure gold into 
the shining stars in dear Old Glory. And today we are all Americans, and 
if I speak with especial earnestness, I speak for the preservation of this 
American nationality to which we have been committed at so extreme 
cost. 

Have you ever stopped to think that we, one people with naturally 
one interest, were led into the Civil War by a mere ambiguity in the Fed- 
eral Constitution? In the beginning Ave were so divided in our ideas that 
there was of necessity uncertainty left in the compact that was made and 
it required the Civil War to wipe it out. And that was a very great price 
to pay. But remembering that, my countrymen, I want to ask you, 
knowing the cost of wiping out the ambiguity in the constitution of our 
own Republic, how can we ever consent to enter into a new world com- 
pact with a dozen ambiguities in it? 

Let me call your particular attention to one: Theie is much dispute 
about that which is known as "The- Heart of the League." No American 
can be simultaneously for Article X and for the Constitution of our Re- 
public any more than an American in Lincoln's time cou d be simultan- 
eously for emancipation and for slavery. 

Article X, "The Heart of the League" — to revise which is "To break 
the heart of the world." 

Let me say right here in passing, that I am a fairly sympathetic human 
being, and I wouldn't break the heart of anybody knowingly, but I would 
rather break the heart of the world than destroy the soul of the United 
States of America. 

Article X is a reciprocal pledge on our part to help preserve the in- 
dependence and the territorial integrity of forty-four nations (if all who 
are invited to join the League do so) commanding thirty-five million 
square miles of the earth's surface. Article X and its corollaries clearly 
contemplate war, if need be, to make this preservation possible. In case 



of such war it is official testimony, in the words of the President himself,, 
that America is "Under an absolutely compelling moral obligation" to 
go in. Mark well those ominous words: There is nothing elastic about 
absolute compulsion. Yet the constitution makes Congress absolutely 
sovereign over America's decision as to war. Therefore, what is the result ?' 
The covenant and the constitution immediately clash. Confronted with 
this unescapable fact, American citizens are told by league apologists, 
and by the Democratic nominee for President, that legally no treaty can 
subvert the constitution, and therefore, that by resort to legal excuse 
we may escape the absolute compulsion of a solemnly pledged moral 
obligation. A choice, in other words, between the American constitu- 
tion and dishonor. 

I wonder, men and women, if your sons and grandsons helped to win 
the World War for such purpose as this? Is any pacifist in America so 
deluded as to believe that a new era of international friendliness is ushered. 
in upon the heels of so stupendous a fraud? Once upon a time when Con- 
gress sought to allow American ships to pass through the American 
Panama Canal, built by American genius, with American money, to 
further American commerce and add to American defense, and when we 
built that canal with the understanding that American ships were to 
pass through free of tolls, pursuant to Democratic contract with the 
people as well as Republican covenant, the same President who brought 
us the league begged Congress and his own partisans to ignore their 
pledge because England objected that such action would violate the 
purport of an obsolete Clayton-Bulwar Treaty. He pledged that the 
treaty's moral obligation flung absolute compulsion upon us to ignore 
our constitutional rights to rule our own destiny, and do as we choose 
with our own ships in our own canal. And the moral obligation won. 
Who cares to say that this same sort of logic will not some day be used 
to plague an unwilling America into foreign war if we unreservedly sub- 
scribe to Article X, the constitution to the contrary^ notwithstanding! 

So I say to you, men from Kentucky and Tennessee, and members 
of that great organization which saved to us Union and nationality, make 
your choice — Constitution or the proposed league, which? I haven't any 
doubt what your decision will be. You believe in the United States of 
America. You believe in the fundamental law. You believe in the capa- 
city of America to determine for herself what she is going to do. 

Oh, my countrymen, that does not mean that we do not intend to 
play our part in the activities of the world. That does not mean that we 
propose to hold aloof and live a selfish existence. Why bless you, if sel- 
fishness had impelled, there never would have been a Civil War, because 
we of the North could have lived alone and prospered and had ever\- 

194 



thing worth while without engaging in conflict with the South over the 
Union and the Constitution. 

You know we went to war, or you did, to preserve the ark of the 
covenant of American Hberty, and I tell you, my countrymen, the great 
issue in America today is to preserve that ark, which is the great Ameri- 
can inheritance. And if the party for which I speak today may have its 
way, we mean to preserve it. And still, in a practical way we propose 
making America's full contribution to the progress and the uplift of man- 
kind and the maintenance of the peace of the world. 

But I like to say to you who know so much of sacrifice and hardship, 
we do not need any council of foreign power to tell us how to play our 
part. More than that, my countrymen, we have some other matters 
of vital importance to discuss — but before I pass to that I cannot resist 
telling of a sweet little incident of the morning that is apropos of this 
blend of the meeting of today. Sitting on this porch but a little while 
ago was one of the notable women of our country. She had married a 
son of Old Kentucky, Col. P. C. Baker, who went from old Kentucky 
to fight with the Gray during the Civil War. One day, after the war was 
ended, this good woman with her husband visited Corinth and made a 
pilgrimage to Old Fort Robinette. There the Confederate son of 
Kentucky stood with his wife and pointed out where he had been located 
during the fight, and then rejoiced with her over the Union restored. 
A few years later he went to his reward. In the passing of time the widow 
met a son who wore the Blue, and they became lovers, and the widow of 
the son of a Kentucky colonel married Robt. J. Burdette, who had gone 
from lillinois to fight for the preservation of the Union. The incident 
had never been related, but one day traveling southward Robt. Burdette 
took his wife to Corinth. Having reached there he said, "Let's go and 
visit old Fort Robinette." After they got out to the Fort he said, "I 
want to show you where I was stationed during the fight." There the 
husband showed the wife where he had fought against her previous 
husband. And yet such was the friendship and the rejoicing of the after- 
war period that that little indicent was the sweetest of their lives. 

The same woman had loved in turn a man who wore the gray and a 
man who wore the blue, and these men in the end loved the same country. 
And I tell you, my countrymen, in this modern day we have put aside the 
old grievances, the old sores; we have healed the old wounds, and today 
we are one common country in these United States. 

Somehow I like to think that a son of Ohio was probably the most 
distinguished of all in helping to that understanding. The flagpole stand- 
ing there in the yard was sent here as a matter of sentiment because it 
stood in the door-yard of one of the humblest, most sympathetic and 

195 



beloved Americans of all time, during his campaign for the Presidency, 
William McKinley, of oui own state. And I like to think of McKinley, 
not only as a great American who always spoke for America first, but I 
like to think of McKinley, who with his tact and gentleness and sym- 
pathy and understanding, came to know the South and made the South 
know him ; and he started the great work of healing the wounds of war. 
When he got into the Spanish-American conflict in 1898, we became again 
one people in this land of ours, and I have said it many times, and I like 
to say it to you, my countrymen, today, that if in the crowning wreaths 
of immortality there is a separate bloom for ever>'^ noble achievement, 
then, sirs, an angel of the South will put on Wm. McKinley's brow the 
sweetest garland that can blossom there. He brought us to an under- 
standing, to a common understanding between the sections that leaves 
no lines to mark a difference in a new appreciation of the American in- 
heritance. And I want, my countrymen, to go on preserving the nation- 
ality that these veterans of the Civil War handed down to us, not only 
unimpaired, but revealed anew. And I want to hold it secure for Ameri- 
cans for all time to come. Ihat is our proposal in this campaign. 

I thank you men and women of Kentucky and Tennessee for the 
honor of your visit, and I thank you veterans of the Grand Army of the 
Republic and men and women of the auxiliary organizations, from the 
bottom of my heart, for this tribute in your call of today, and I make you 
the pledge of the son of a veteran that everything in my power shall be 
done to hold intact the inheritance you gave to us. 



196 



A SPEECH BY SENATOR WARREN G. HARDING 

TO LOYAL ORDER OF GOLDEN HEART, 

MARION, OHIO, SEPTEMBER 21, 1920 

Ladies and Gentlemen: It is a very gratifying thing to have your 
call. I like the suggestion that Mr. Mannington has made, that you are 
a fraternal organization given to patriotic devotions. You know the 
world has found itself lately very much committed to the ideas of frater- 
nity. It is the natural outcome of a new understanding of our relation- 
ships. Fraternity is one of the most natural things in life. You have seen 
it in the organization of men into small groups, of women in their so- 
cieties. You often see it in the animal life, where Nature has somehow 
implanted in them love of life and at the same time the love of fraternity 
and association together, and if you stop to think about it you will dis- 
cover that in animal life there is the fraternity of protection and mutual 
advancement. This finds expression in our human relationships in var- 
ious forms. I do not suppose there is a people in all the world that has so 
developed the fraternity idea as we have in the United States. I have 
sometimes wondered how many fraternal orders there are, some secret, 
some open. 

But we find fraternity in all the walks of life. It is a curious stage in 
human affairs when we have run really to excess in some forms of organi- 
zation. It only magnifies through the tendency of men and women of 
common aspiiations to get together to furthei their very natural inter- 
ests. In a broader sense we have come a little nearer to a fraternity of 
nations. 

The World War brought us to a new realization, that mankind, after 
all, was interested in one common purpose, namely, the uplift of man- 
kind. Nations that were once looking at each other in envy and jealousy 
and iivaliy have come to understand that their best interests are to be 
served in mutual advancement and we have come to the stage in human 
affairs where we are seeking to put an end to warfare and to conflict and 
to dwell in a little closer understanding. 

I know full well the impelling thoughts in any helpful organization. 
You seek to advance the standards of individual life; you seek to advance 
the standards of your common activities. You would not go into an or- 
ganization if you did not think that, individually and collectively, you 
would be better off because of the association which you undertake. And 
at the same time, while that is your impelling thought I know that not 
a single one of you would go into any fraternity that was ever proposed 

197 



if you thought it involved the surrender of anything you hold essential 
to your own individual life. 

I recall many an obligation that I have come in contact with in secret 
orders, and there isn't one that ever asked a man to surrender any of his 
liberties, any of his freedom of thought, any of his freedom of religious 
belief. And making the application of that point I want to apply it to 
nations. Just now we are talking very much about associations of the 
nations of the world. We, of America, gave first the finest illustration 
that was ever recorded of fraternity of nations. I like to recall it. I have 
spoken of it on previous occasions. Some twenty years ago, when Amer- 
ica had first planted the flag of this Republic, with every glittering star 
fixed, as a banner of hope and stability in the Orient, there broke out in 
China what was known as the Boxer Rebellion. The rebellious Boxers 
in their warfare endangered all the foreign residents in the city of Peking. 
It became necessary to send a military expedition to the relief of those 
beleaguered citizens of the various nations of the earth. And I always 
like to recall that a son of our own State of Ohio led the military expedi- 
tion, the late General Chaffee. They brought about the relief of the cit- 
izens of foreign countries imprisoned in Peking, and in a little while the 
military forces were withdrawn. Then representatives of the several 
nations engaged in that expedition sat about a table and figured out the 
expense of the several countries who had sent military relief. The sum 
presumably necessary to pay the United States for the protection of its 
citizens was assessed against China, and a like sum, or proportionate 
sum, was assessed against the government of China for Germany, for 
Great Britian, for France, and the other nations involved. 

Later on we came to cast up the accounts in detail, and we found 
that the government of China had paid eight million dollars in money 
to the United States more than was necessary to recompense us for our 
military endeavors. And the United States returned that money to 
China, sent back eight million dollars that they had paid us in that 
award — the first time that such a thing was ever done in the history of 
the world. That was the first great illustration of a fraternal spirit among 
nations. And that is why China plants its faith in the example, in the 
democracy, in the justice of the United States of America. And we, my 
countrymen, are greater today by reason of the example which we then 
set to the world than we could ever hope to be by force of arms, no matter 
how large our army and navy may be. 

An interesting aftermath resulted in the Peace Conference in Paris. 
China went into the war at our request. I do not know that you recall 
it but that Oriental people, at the suggestion of the State Department of 
our country, declared war against the Central Empire, Germany and 

198 



Austro-Hungary. And when the war settlements came about China 
sought to be represented at the Peace Conference and they ought to 
have been represented. For some reason or other they were not. Then 
they said, "We will trust the United States of America to represent us, 
with confidence in that great Republic." And yet, somehow in the Peace 
Conference, through contract secretly made, China had no voice in the 
settlement and instead of being awarded the freedom of her own people 
under the gospel of self-determination for which America spoke, several 
million of her people were delivered over to a rival nation, with the con- 
sent and approval of those who spoke for America in Paris. But when 
that covenant came into the United States Senate, I rejoice that there 
were Americans in the United States who said "No " and we did not ap- 
prove of the Shantung award. And we kept the plight and faith in the 
lesson we taught China some twenty years ago. Now, the obligation and 
the fraternal thought, as I said a little while ago, is that you would not 
enter into any fraternal organization, no matter how high its ideals 
might be, if you thought it involved the surrender of anything essential 
to your individual existence. And that, my countrymen, men and wo- 
men, is precisely the doctrine I am trying to preach just now for the 
United States. We want to be high and eminent and influential in the 
fraternity of nations. We want to play our part in the promotion and 
maintenance of peace throughout the world; aye, we want to play this 
Republic's part in assuring justice to all the world and in advancing 
human kind in every way we can. In America we want to contribute our 
part through the application of justice rather than the application of 
force; and if I can have my way of speaking for America we will never 
enter into a fraternity that is founded on force. But we do mean to play 
our part, our full part, along the lines of justice properly applied. 

So with this new international relationship proposition, we Repub- 
licans are saying that we do not intend to go in so long as it involves the 
surrender of anything essential to the dignity, freedom of action, free- 
dom of conscience of the United States of America. But we do willingly 
say that we want to join any association of nations for the promotion of 
justice, for the felicitation of international conscience; aye, for turning 
the deliberate, intelligent public opinion of the world upon international 
controversy so that it may be settled in the applied conscience of nations 
rather than through military force directed by a council of foreign powers, 
with capacity to invite, aye, to order the sons of America into war for the 
protection of the boundaries of nations across the sea. That, my country- 
men, America will never consent to. We have our own destiny to woik 
out, and we in America have been working it out to the astonishment 
and the admiration, yes, to the inspiration, of all the world. 

199 



Here in America we have the ideal Republic. We have the most de- 
pendable popular government the world has ever recorded. You must 
lemember that there have been republics before and they have tumbled 
or crumbled and become forgotten amid the conflicts of passion among 
the nations of the world. But here in America for a hundred and thirty- 
three years we have had established the greatest, the most secure Repub- 
lic on the face of the earth and here in America we maintain the people's 
rule. It is quite possible for the people to determine upon every policy 
of this Republic if we cling to the Constitution, the fundamental law of 
the Republic. 

And so I am preaching also the gospel of getting back to the Consti- 
tution and putting an end to one-man power in the United States. In 
your fraternity you do not allow one man to dictate the policy. You 
choose your leaders, but you determine policy by the vote of your mem- 
bership. And if we can have our way in this campaign we are going to 
go on in America determining the policy of this Republic by the vote of 
its intelligent citizenship, doubled happily now by the addition of the 
conscience and the aspirations and the convictions of American woman- 
hood. I am glad you women are coming in. Come into the parties and 
play your part and join in giving expression to the conscience of this 
wonderful land of ours. 

I am grateful for your call. I like the spirit of fraternity. I am preach- 
ing it, and want it applied for the United States. Don't you think, my 
countrymen, we will be a little more self -respected and just a little more 
self-reliant if we resolve among ourselves that we of America shall deter- 
mine upon the conscience and the obligations of our beloved land to the 
rest of the world, and apply our best thoughts and our patriotic devotion 
to the promotion of America first of all the nations of the earth? 



200 



A SPEECH BY SENATOR WARREN G. HARDING 

TO DELEGATION FROM CRAWFORD CO., 

OHIO, AND OTHER POINTS IN THE 

STATE, SEPTEMBER 23, 1920 

The conservation of human resource is even more important than 
the conservation of material resource ; but I desire to call your attention 
to the fact that one depends a great deal on the other, and that the two 
foim a benevolent circle. This fact is forgotten by many persons. On 
the one hand, there are those with a strong sentiment to improve the 
conditions of the less fortunate or by a policy, even more wise, to prevent 
the development of unjust social conditions or low standards of health 
and education, and to maintain our position as a land of equal oppor- 
tunity. So fixed do some of their eyes become on the human resources 
of America and on occasional misery and suffering, that they even be- 
come impatient with those who are working to build up by industry, 
wholesome business enterprise and productivity, the material resources, 
and consequently, the standards of living of our people. 

On the other hand, there are other persons who, in the main, I believe 
are not heartless or selfish but who are so intent on their tasks of manu- 
facturing and commerce, driven perhaps by that impulse for creation 
which is so often misinterpreted as mere money-hunger, that they forget 
that the men, women and children about them, sometimes in their em- 
ploy, are not mere commodities and are not even mere machines to be 
consumed, worn out, treated without love and tossed aside, but are hu- 
man beings whose welfare in the end is so intertwined with that of every 
other human being that the imperfections, the poor health, the neglected 
old age, the abused childhood, the failure of motherhood in any one of 
them becomes an injury and a menace to us all. 

A Broadened Conscience 

I say to you that we must bring together the broadened consciences 
of those who concentrate their attention upon our businesses and our 
great enterprises on the one hand and see only the vision of prosperity, 
and on the other, those who find in their hearts and minds no vision but 
that of raising the standard of health and happiness of less fortunate 
human beings, where such standards have fallen below those which all 
Americans wish to see enjoyed by all Americans. 

I am glad that you have come to see me with the presentation of the 
facts about your field of service to America. That must be the spirit of 
all our citizenship — Service, a willingness to serve intelligently, to train 
for humane service, to cleave to an idealism of deeds and honest toil and 

201 



scientific accomplishments, rather than to serve by mere words. 

I believe this spirit can be fostered best by uniting America. I be- 
lieve it is best served by wiping away distinctions of class, creed, race 
or occupation which separate Americans from Americans. And so, to- 
day, I would like to reach all Americans with this message I am speaking 
to you. 

I say let us awake the conscience and intelligence of the social reform- 
er, and even of the discontents, and the agitators who, sometimes, with 
fine zeal for the good of mankind, nevertheless go too far and do gross 
harm to mankind by spreading the idea that productivity, a day's hon- 
est work, American business, and commerce are somehow the symbols of 
evil, of oppression, of selfishness. These are not symbols of evil, nor are 
business and industry, expressing the toil of head and hand, the enemies 
of men's welfare. They are the sources of man's welfare. 
Must Awaken Conscience 

We must awaken the conscience of the ignorant and the misguided to 
the fact that the best social welfare worker in the world is the man or 
woman who does an honest day's work. We must awaken their con- 
science to recognize that American business is not a monster, but an ex- 
pression of God-given impulse to create, and the savior and the guardian 
of our happiness, our homes and of equal opportunity for all in America. 
Whatever we do for honest, humane American business, we do in the 
name of social welfare. 

But it is equally true that we must awaken the conscience of American 
business to new interest in the welfaie of American human beings. It is 
not enough for America that her business and commerce shall be honest; 
they must also be humane. Men, women and children of America are not 
commodities. To treat them as commodities is not only to forget the 
responsibility we owe to the brotherhood of man, but also it is to be blind 
to the fact that American business can not flourish nor the material 
prospeiity of America be built upon a fii m foundation until by just such 
work as that to which you have dedicated yourselves — by protection of 
health, by education, by the preservation of wholesome American mother- 
hood and vigorous and happy American childhood, and a national hu- 
mane spirit finding expression in enactment of law when need be — we 
insure the welfare of our human resources. 

The belief which I would like to send through you to all Americans is 
my belief that we can not have the fullness of America until all of us turn 
again to love of toil and love of production, to respect for honest organi- 
zation of effort and to a willingness to put all our shoulders to the wheel. 
But with it goes my belief that we can not hav^e all that love, and all that 
respect, and all that willingness until throughout the organization of our 
industry and commerce there runs the flow of love of man. 

202 



A SPEECH BY SENATOR WARREN G. HARDING 

TO DELEGATION OF WEST VIRGINIA CITI- 

ZENS, MARION, OHIO, SEPTEMBER 

24, 1920 

Judge Vandervoort, Congressmen Woodyard, Fellow Americans: — ■ 
I am very happy over this pilgrimage. I have, as Judge Vandervoort 
has said, come a good many times into your wonderful state, not only as 
a matter of duty but as a matter of very keen pleasure. I have come into 
West Virginia not alone because you are neighbors of Ohio and think 
and aspire as we do in the Buckeye state, but because it is good to come 
among the live, aspiring, achieving population of your remarkable 
new state. I have come there to worship at the shrine of him who made the 
first great impassioned stroke for modern American freedom, I delight 
to comiC among you because there is a type of citizenship in the mountains 
of your wonderful state that has no counterpart in all America. And I 
tell you, my countrymen, if the day ever comes when the spirit of Amer- 
ica, which God forbid, should ever fade although sometimes it would seem 
to do so — I say, if the day ever comes when the spirit of America should 
seem to fade, you could go in the mountains of West Virginia, Kentucky 
and Tennessee and still find the soul of the United States of America 
alive. 

It has been my fortune in some twenty years of political life 
to do considerable campaign speaking, and I like to say it to you, I have 
never found any section of our glorious country so delightful and so in- 
spiring to visit as in the mountains of West Virginia, Kentucky and 
Tennessee. 

There is another thought that has been running in my mind and 
which your pilgrimage today strikingly illustrates: the infinite variety 
of American life and the surpassing progress in American advancement. 
Only four years ago, not very far from the borders of West Virginia, 
over in the Camel's Head of the mother state, in the same mountain 
section, so near to you that many of your fellow citizens were present, I 
attended a great political meeting at Tazewell. I think there were some 
ten thousand persons present, and I recall distinctly the impressions 
made on me by seeing the scores, aye, hundreds of ox-teams come in 
from the mountains, and citizens on horse back and muleback, the primi- 
tive but effective transportation of the mountain section, and yet you, 
only four years later, come to Marion, many, many miles by motor car 
as the result of the development of this wonderful motor age of ours. 

203 



There is still another thought appropriate to the occasion: A good 
many years ago the pioneers who were developing the great state of 
Ohio found it necessary to travel through your section in order to reach 
the markets of the Atlantic seaboard. It was a very common thing for 
southern and eastern Ohio people to drive their cattle, indeed all their 
live stock, and haul their grain to the seaboard by way of West Virginia. 
The national road, reaching from Cumberland, Maryland, to Richmond, 
Ind., was one of the first conceits of government in establishing highways 
for trade. And though that beginning was more than a century ago, how 
strikingly it illustrates the waiting hours of fulfillment, for only in the 
last year or two has the national road become a real highway of trade 
and now links us together. It adds to our common interest and mutual- 
ity of purpose. And now today we are met, not in your pilgrimage to me 
as a compliment to a neighbor and friend, but as a manifestation of 
your interest in the purposes and policies of a great political party 
concerned with our common welfare. 

We are in the midst of a great nation-wide campaign. I do not be- 
lieve anything precisely like it could transpire anywhere else in the 
world. Ours is representative popular government where, under the 
Constitution, the American people rule. There isn't any place in this 
land of ours for a one-man government permanently (no one man is 
big enough to run the United States, much less the world). And in this 
campaign we are taking stock, finding out what we possess, and what we 
ought to do for our common welfare. We are deliberately considering 
the needs of America, and what our government must do for the promo- 
tion of the good of our people in every section. 

Naturally enough, one section of the United States is specifically 
interested in one thing, and another section another thing. It has been 
a very interesting thing to me as a standard-bearer to note the expres- 
sions of local interest throughout the United States. For instance, the 
land to the south of you has suddenly discovered the very great need of 
the helpful Republican policy, known as the protective tariff, in order 
to save its peanut industry, and I am in favor of saving it — I want you 
to know. On our western coast California has suddenly discovered that 
it has need of the same favoring policy in order to save the citrus fruit in- 
dustry, and I want you to know that I am in favor of saving it. West 
Virginia is naturally interested in the protection of the numerous 
industries located in your state, and I am in favor of saving those in- 
dustries and holding them eminent in our American life. And we have 
the concern of this organized group and that, and naturally and prop- 
erly we discuss the things which interest them all. That is the busi- 
ness of a political campaign. 

204 



We must discuss the interests of the agricultural world, because 
we in the United States have seen agriculture first neglected, not in 
intent, but because we naturally assumed that agriculture was basic and 
could care for itself; and then in turn we have seen American 
agriculture strained to meet the surpassing needs of our country in war. 
Further, we have seen the forces engaged in agriculture called from the 
field and the farm to add to our defense in war. 

We have seen our transportation impaired — and nothing my country- 
men, in all the developments of war, exceeded the menace which lies 
in impaired American transportation, and the pity of it is that not only 
was transportation impaired by the bungling of the national administra- 
tion during the war, but it was more impaired because the administra- 
tion took advantage of our country in the anxieties of war to revolu- 
tionize our economic system. 

I want to say to you, and I believe I speak the thought of America, 
we do not believe in government ownership of railways. We do not be- 
lieve in the paralzing hand of government being placed upon any Amer- 
ican activity that ought to be in the hands of private initiative and gen- 
ius. We have witnessed inflation of the currency, enormous expansion 
of credits, aye, a fevered inflation of business, and, somehow, contem- 
plating it all, America wants to get back, and I will emphasize the 
words "Get Back," for America wants to get back once more to stability 
and dependability and know where we are in the normal pursuits of this 
Republic. 

Under these circumstances I say, and I like to repeat it, my country- 
men, the republican appeal is going to continue to be to the confidence 
of America. We do not intend to appeal to any group prejudice. We do 
not intend to discuss petty things unworthy of consideration in a great 
national campaign. 

The Republican Party wants either the confidence and faith of 
America, or it does not desire to assume the responsibilities of govern- 
ment in this trying time. The nation is too big for petty things just now. 
And the issues are infinitely too serious and important to be obscured by 
any sort of vaudeville performance on the part of anybody in this 
Republic. 

Two enormously big questions are involved in this campaign. The 
first of them has been alluded to you by your spokesman, namely, 
to maintain the freedom of this Republic to work out its own destiny and 
make its own program for the advancement of the American people. 
The second is, the restoration of America to the stable ways of peace 
after the saturnalia of extravagance amid the fevered state of war. 
The trouble with us today is that the Democratic Party, responsible 

205 



in administration, riveted its attention on a dream across the sea, while 
we, of the Republican Party, are thinking of actualities in the United 
States. 

There is a new condition in the world, and I warn you now, my 
countrymen, we will never return to the old pre-war conditions. Human- 
ity has reached a higher plane. There is a new conscience in the activities 
of men and of nations. We have established a wage never known before 
in the United States; and such a wage, which is a necessary part of 
industrial activity, I think we ought to maintain. It is very interesting 
to me to note the road by which we arrived at the present state of com- 
pensation. You must remember that when the war came on the Old 
World took, at one time or another, more than thirty millions of men from 
the pursuits of productivity and turned them into agents of destruction 
and waste; thirty millions of men became consumers instead of producers. 
And when America became involved in the war — in spite of the Demo- 
cratic pledge that they were keeping us out of it — we turned four mil- 
lions of Americans from activities of production to that of consumption 
and participation in destruction. That wrought a very material change 
in our economic processes. Naturally, the call for manpower sent the 
scale of wages higher and higher. 

I will give you one illustration, which may be very interesting. 
This war found us without shipping. Although we had shipyards and 
have learned in the early days of the Republic of the imperative need of 
ships, yet, somehow, we had neglected our shipping on the high seas until 
the war found us without a merchant marine. I have sometimes thought 
that if America had had a merchant marine comparable with her navy 
there would likely have never been the proposal of the submarine war- 
fare on the seas, but Germany knew that we had no merchant marine, 
and they reckoned us out of any participation in the conflict in Europe. 
So when the war came on we had to have ships. Meanwhile the ship- 
building industry, for which we were once famous was being restored, 
notably on the western coast of our land. Over on the west coast, in the 
northern portion, they were building ships for Great Britain and the 
Scandinavian countries. They were building ships under the bonus- 
contract plan wherein they were paid excessive sums for speed. Speed 
was one of the expensive things of the war emergency, and because of the 
call for workmen in the shipyards there was a natural bidding up of 
wages and the skimming of the cream of workmen from many industries 
throughout the land. That process alone was made the wage barometer 
in America, and throughout the country wages advanced as the advance 
was made at the call of the shipyards on the west coast. We did not have 
the manpower necessary for our requirements, and under a very natural 

206 



and unfailing law of life, in the call for manpower we advanced compen- 
tion until today America is paying the highest wage known anywhere 
in the world. 

I want that high wage to abide, my countrymen. I have no hesitancy 
in saying it. But I always accompany that statement with one proviso — 
that I want the high wage to abide provided American workmen will 
give us one hundred per cent, efficiency for the wages paid. 

In the call of war we took two hundred and fifty thousand workmen 
and turned them to building ships or the necessary outfittings for Amer- 
ican shipping. And out of this tremendous drive for ships we builded an 
American merchant marine. And I want to say, in passing, that one of 
the great problems of the incoming administration will be to take twelve 
million tons of shipping, which was wrought in the war emergency, and 
turn it into an effective agency of widened commerce in peace. 

I do not know, my countrymen, of a single failure of the present ad- 
ministration comparable to that of the United States Shipping Board. 
It has been one continual fiasco from the beginning. When the war came 
to an end, with the shipping at our command, we ought to have been in 
a position to establish immediately- ship lines to all parts of the world, 
but today the Shipping Board is still inefficient and scarcely functioning. 
In this connection I want to promise you that one of the first acts of the 
incoming administration will be to unfurl the flag on all paths of the seas. 

I know that it is in the American heart to have somebody somehow 
say, and say truthfully, that we are going to modify the extraordinarily 
high cost of living. I wish I could say something specific to you, my 
countrymen, on this point. It is a very easy thing to stand before a 
company of one's fellow countrymen and inveigh against the high cost 
of living, and cry out against profiteering and say we mean to bring 
living cost down. But I won't cheat my fellow countrymen in order to 
win their favor in this campaign. 

I have asked, not a score, not a hundred, but hundreds of men in 
talking on this tremendously important subject, to tell me the one 
specific thing, or the many specific things, that can be done to bring 
this about, and I have yet to hear one man who can speak with candor 
and tell me the specific thing to be done. I know some means that 
may be harmonized in bringing about a reduction in the cost of living, 
and I repeat them to you : The fiirst great contribution to the solution 
must be made by yourselves. You cannot expect a reduction of the cost 
of living under the natural operations of business so long as America con- 
tinues to consume in the delirium of war extravagance. I make it a 
practice in my own life, if I find something more expensive than I think 
I can afford to buy, to decline to buy. And that is the one thing that the 

207 



American citizen can do to bring the cost of living down somewhere 
to a dependable figure once more. Next, increased efficiency of pro- 
duction. You cannot have high wages and reduced cost of production 
unless you have better efficiency accompany the high wages, and I care 
not who may attempt to challenge the statement. 

In the next place, I want to preach the gospel of thrift and economy. 
The nation which will make the first recovery from the waste and de- 
pression of the World War will be the nation that lives thriftily and 
within its means. I preach the gospel of thrift for the United States. 

I do not mean that I advocate a lower standard of American living. 
I rejoice that America can live high. But America must live within her 
means. 

I spoke a little while ago about the motor age. Why, only a few years 
ago it was a dream to have a motor car. Nowadays it is such an ordinary 
thing that nobody thinks anything about such a possession, merely 
wondering about the ultimate cost of gasoline. 

We do live high in the United States and I want it to continue. 
Indeed, my countrymen, the Republican Party stands for the policy 
that means maintenance of American standards. I have not the slightest 
objection to the standards of the world being made the same, but I do in- 
sist that when that is done, old-world standards must be lifted up to 
ours, and not our standards lowered to that of the old world. 

Another thing that is very near my heart, and I promise you this 
day in all the sincerity I know, that when this enterprise succeeds, as 
as I believe it will on November 2nd, we are going to reduce the cost of 
government. And a reduced cost of government will make its very 
notable contribution to a lowered cost of living. Who pays the cost of 
government anyhow? The American people pay, no matter through what 
individual agency the tax check is sent. That is true of local taxation; 
that is true of federal taxation. And here in the United States we have 
seen the cost of government mount from approximately a billion dollars 
a year to more than thirty billion dollars a year in the prosecution of the 
war. And the day will never come, my countrymen, even with exacting 
economy on all hands, that the cost of the federal government will be 
less than three billion dollars a year; and even that figure isn't possible 
to the Democratic Party, more concerned with keeping its partisans in 
office than serving the welfare of the American people. 

When I am elected I promise you there are going to be hundreds of 
thousands of Americans, in Washington and elsewhere in the service of 
the government, go back home to take their places in the activities of 
production. 

You must remember that America has not only expanded the func- 

208 



tions of government but we have an enormous war debt to meet, annual 
nterest thereon to pay, and it is going to require, during the next few 
years, a business administration comparable to that which makes a 
success of private enterprise, to put the government on the right track 
once more. 

There is another phase of the situation. As a Republican, I like to 
think that up to the time of the Wilson administration, with its new 
freedom, one never knew that he paid a federal tax. Under the Republi- 
can policy of protection we made the foreigner pay so much for the priv- 
ilege of trading in American markets that we did not have to assess our 
own people directly to carr>' on the functions of government. Then the 
Wilson administration came in and changed all that. They asked us 
to sharpen our wits in competition with the world — indeed, we did sharp- 
en them, but we dulled our activities, and at the time the war broke out, 
we were fast approaching industrial paralysis in the United States. In 
my home city, here in Marion, one factory laid off fifty per cent of its 
employes, and we were fast paying the penalty of Democratic control 
of government, when the World War broke out and erected a protective 
barrier that fostered American trade such as no Republican tariff policy 
could ever accomplish. 

But now, with a cessation of hostilities, that barrier has been re- 
moved and there is the problem of the world restoring itself economic- 
ally and financially. Very naturally, the process of restoration is to 
turn to production, and to sell, and the most natural thing in the world 
is to sell to the nation most able to buy. We in America are the most 
solvent nation in all the world, so all the nations of the Old World, 
war born and ambitious for restoration want to sell to the United States. 
And I am willing to buy of them, my countrymen, so long as it does not 
involve the destruction of American industry to do it. I want our people 
to buy of them so that we can facilitate the payment of the war debts 
created by the loans made to the nations in the Old World, but I had 
rather postpone indefinitely the liquidation of our war loans than to bring 
about paralysis in America in order to cancel them. I want to cling to 
that American policy which prospers the United States first. I want to 
cling to that American policy which thinks of American good fortune 
first. Aye, I stand for that American policy that has confidence in 
America determining her own course in contributing to the welfare of 
mankind and the promotion of justice and peace throughout the world. 

There are a good many problems which need our solving. I cannot 
stop to enumerate all the weaknesses. Here in America we have builded 
industrially to the wonder of the world. In Marion, Ohio, and in West 
Virginia, we have not come to fully sense the problems of the great 

209 



centers of population. 1 have only recently come myself to know hoiv 
lacking I have been in understanding the problems of the great cities. 
There they have their housing problems. There they have the necessary 
activities to make the people who live in crowded tenements, more es- 
pecially the women and children, so live and develop that they may em- 
brace the fullness of American opportunity. So here in the United 
States one of the great problems we have is the housing of American 
citizenship and restoring to the American farm the forces necessary to 
continued upbuilding and advancement agriculturally. And we have 
all the problems incident to developing men and women to the highest 
human attainment. 

Men and women of West Virginia, I know the limitless possibilities 
of your state. I do not know of one in all the Union where nature has 
blessed its people so bountifully. But possibilities in resources are not 
enough. If possibilities in resources accomplished the making of a great 
people Mexico would have outstripped us in the race for human achieve- 
ment. Indeed, industry alone does not work the marvel. If industry 
were the explanation of human progress and accomplishment, China 
would have outstripped all the peoples of the world because there is 
not so industrious a people anywhere else on earth. But it is the com- 
bination of resources and industry and genius, and the work of men 
and women in the encouragement of American opportunity, that works 
the marvel. And I want to commit America to the continued develop- 
ment and the continued triumph that comes from resources, industry 
and genius in this land of beckoning opportunity. 

Man never accomplishes anything until he begins to exchange of 
his products, and the balance of trade in exchange for individuals, 
companies or nations is the one great thing that makes for human en- 
richment. 

What is the working man's part in life? He sells his labor as his 
commodity, and the cost of living is the base of his activities. If he 
earns $25 per week — and I am taking an arbitrary figure that is too small 
nowadays — but if he earns $25 a week and it costs him $20 a week to 
live, he has $5 balance of trade to his credit. If he earns $50 weekly and 
it costs him $45 to live he still has $5 balance of trade. 

The factory's balance of trade is the difference between its cost of 
producing a certain thing and the sum for which it sells. And American 
balance of trade is the difference between what we sell to other nations 
and what we buy from them. And under fostering Republican policies 
we enrich America with a favorable balance of trade, and this balance 
prior to the war had reached the sum of two billions of dollars a year. 
But under Democratic policies up to the time immediately preceding the 

210 



war the balance of tradi^ had vanished entirely, and again under war ac- 
tivities it mounted at the peak to something like six billions of dollars 
a year. Today, after the demands of war have subsided, our balance 
of trade is going down, down and down, until at the present ratio of ex- 
change we are having a favorable balance of only about half a billion a 
year. 

I want to turn, my countrymen, once more to the policy that main- 
tains for America a favorable balance of trade, because with our re- 
sources and our activities and our aspirations we ought to be not only 
the greatest producing but the greatest exporting nation on the face 
of the earth. So I cling to the policy that proposes x\merican markets 
for American production first — not in that narrow selfishness that some 
proclaim it to be, but to fix a firm foundation for the good fortunes of 
the people of the United States, on which we shall build the ideal Re- 
public, and then exert our influence throughout the world by the force of 
American example. I do not think that all life is founded on material 
gain, but I do know that material gain is the ever-impelling inspira- 
tion. And I want the men and women of America to have a fair 
chance for their material gain, and then in the efforts of all we shall 
work out our highest attainment. I want the people of our land, under 
the guarantees of the constitution, to work out their own destiny, 
and I want America to work out in her own way our relationships 
with the world. I have no fear of our pursuing a narrow or selfish way. 
America would not do that if she could, and America could not do that 
if she would. 

I like to recall that before any compact was proposed around the 
council table at Paris, America v/as giving of her generosity, America 
was giving of her influence, America was giving of her abundance to the 
relief of mankind throughout the universe. Aye, and without any com- 
pact wherein a foreign council could call us to war, we went into the 
World War and performed our part and helped to win it, because we 
found our own nationality threatened on the one hand, and civilization 
threatened on the other. Don't you think, my countrymen, we can trust 
America to find its own way? I believe we are so committed to all that 
it is beautiful in justice and fine example that America will go on inspir- 
ing and leading the world in the future just as we have in the past. 

Who wrought the transformation from autocracy to democracy? 
The example of the American Republic founded a hundred and thirty- 
three years ago, has been an inspiration to aspiring peoples through- 
out the world. Under the influence of war example we have seen king- 
doms fall and autocracies crumble and democracies rise. And we mean, 
my countrymen, in this hour of world anxiety, to give to humanity, the 

211 



example of a stable democracy, a representative democracy, under the 
American Constitution. And we mean to say to the world, "Go on," 
America is ever ready to play her part, but under the direction of our 
own American conscience. 



A SPEECH BY SENATOR WARREN G. HARDING 
TO DELEGATION OF TRAVELING SALES- 
MEN, MARION, OHIO, SEPTEMBER, 25, 1920 

My Countrymen: Long before money was a dependable means of 
exchange, long before banks and clearing houses were even thought of 
the barters of trade were the advance agents expanding civilization. The 
primitive man produced from the soil for his own sustenance, but when 
he began turning nature's bounty into surpluses, people undertook their 
exchanges, and the exchange of products was attended by an exchange 
of ideas, and the world developed and advanced accordingly. It was in 
these exchanges that the first traveling men of all civilization became 
the ambassadors of education and art, the bearers of ideas, and the sur- 
veyors of the widened fields of human relationships. The paths of cargoes 
were the highways of exchanging ideas, and the men who bought and 
sold, the traveling men of old, were the foremost exponents of the world's 
commerce and its attending civilization. 

The traveling men of today maintain their eminent relationship to 
the life and progress of our people. Business is the life blood of the nation, 
and these business agents are unfailing in their reflex of progressive 
thought and the convictions of the American people. We find them 
everywhere, always alert, always pushing ahead, always eager to add to 
the volume of business which is the barometer of our material good for- 
tune and the base of ah our boasted attainments. 

As American First 

But I do not mean to address you especially as com.mercial travelers, 
but rather as Americans first. I do not ask that you, who can carry fur- 
ther than any other body of men a message to the American people, 
shall carry any part of a message in which you do not yoursehes believe, 
with full heart and with calm thinking, is for the good of the whole of 
the American people. I would not dwell upon criticism of the conditions 
brought about by nearly eight years of mismanagement of the United 
States if it were not necessary to take some account of where we now 
stand so that we may wisely bring America again to her main road, and 
restore prosperity and give promise to the laborer, who gives us the prod- 

212 



ucts of soil and][toil, that we shall not have in the United States a "NO 
HOUR DAY." 

I know pretty well, from more or less contact with commercial trav- 
elers, during a third of a century of business life, how it is in the heart 
of each to further the work which is his task. It is in this untiring devo- 
tion, this never-ending activity, enhanced by other attributes, that suc- 
cess is achieved. I want the commercial travelers of the one big house — 
this Republic of ours — always to be thinking of America first. 

But I know what is in your minds today — your practical thought. 
You want stability once more for American business. You want normal 
conditions. You want that confidence and security which will put an 
end to anxiety about production; an end to fear about buying; an end 
to uncertainty about delivery or distribution. No abiding commercial 
edifice was ever builded on the changing sands of uncertainty. 

Free From Abuse 

In deploring present-day conditions, I do not mean to indulge in 
abuse which can bear no good fruit, nor in criticism which can only re- 
suit in contention. Undeniably, there is a feeling permeating the Ameri- 
can mind that great harm has been done by unwise heads and prodigal 
hands. In seeking the correction, the party for which I speak means to 
appeal to the confidence and the sober convictions of America, else we 
do not wish to be committed to the enormous tasks before us. We want 
this confidence and conviction of America because we need the will of 
the people in the sough t-f or solution. 

I believe that everywhere in the land there is the opinion that we 
have had enough of government excessively centralized in executive 
powers; enough of autocratic government unwilling to heed counsel and 
advice; enough of government which ignores the representative branch 
and its close contact with the popular will. I want it very explicitly 
understood that my election to the executive office means a complete 
change from the one-man policy which has characterized our national 
government during the past seven years. 

Driven Toward Chaos 

We have been driven toward chaos, I believe, not only by the unsuc- 
successful attempts made to mortgage American rights, American for- 
tunes and the American conscience abroad, and to check American na- 
tionality and American honor at the cloak room of the President's league 
of nations in Geneva, but we have been driven toward chaos at home. 
It becomes necessary for us calmly to take account of stock, and I believe 
that this has been done already by the American people. 

I believe that they are cognizant of the terrible wastes which came 
from our unpreparedness for war and our unpreparedness for peace. I 

213 



believe that the American people know fuli well that while an adminis- 
trative voice was preaching the courses of conduct to foreign nations our 
own home affairs were being so neglected that we well-nigh set a bad 
example, rather than a good example, to all mankind. 

I believe that the people of America need not to be told that they pay 
the bills of administrative government whose distension for war still re- 
mains over-distended for peace. It has become common knowledge that 
there are between seven hundred and eight hundred thousand persons 
on the pay-roll of the United States, who will be kept there, of course, 
unless we have a new management, because the party which hired will 
never be the party to bring the number of excess employes down again 
toward the four hundred and forty thousand who were on the pay-roll 
in 1916. The people know very well that only an intelligent opposition 
prevented the present administration from making an expenditure of 
over eleven billions of dollars in a peace year, and the eleven billions 
would have been a reasonably large draft upon a people who in 1916 paid 
one billion dollars for their current expenses of government. The people 
know that only Republican opposition to this reckless program reduced 
the appropriations by more than one-third and saved to the people of 
the United States, who directly as tax-payers, or indirectly as consumers, 
bear the load, an amount greater than the whole cost of the Civil War. 

The people know already that when the war came upon us American 
business was facing disruption and the American workingman unem- 
ployment, and that another year of folly now would mean industrial 
plants cold in idleness and laborers walking among them looking in vain 
for the joy of a day's productive work. 

Almost Cost of Civil War 

The tax-payers know full well that the Democratic administration 
of the American railways cost the people of this country an amount al- 
most equal to the amount spent by us from 1861 to 1865 to preserve the 
Union. The people are just beginning to learn that the action of the 
Democratic administration stood in the way of purchasing from Cuba 
a sugar crop at six and one-half cents a pound, and of saving to the peo- 
ple of the United States nearly a billion dollars. The people have seen an 
administration which is lavish in executive orders, utterly fail to know 
enough about the reason for the high price of coal to give the American 
people a clear answer as to why that price is mounting. 

In good sense, and in good conscience, it has been necessary for all 
of us to recognize that we have been dragged toward chaos. A nation 
which prides itself upon its business sense has been forced to see its gov- 
ernment, which badly needeid efficiency and reorganization, twisted into 
a monstrosity of waste and slip-shoddiness. And that administration, 

214 



almost innocent, we may say, of business principle, has not stopped there, 
but has gone afield to meddle abroad in such a way as to create enmity, 
where its meddling has been uninvited, and to create dissension at home 
among our population of foreign blood. But that is not all — an adminis- 
tration which could not attend to its own business well, with new eco- 
nomic theories, with experiments, with activities in which it was never 
intended government should participate, and with laws and executive 
orders which failed to curb profiteering or contribute to our high standard 
of American business, has reached out its hindering hands in menace to 
American business and American prosperity. 

Must Turn Away 

From that unfortunate picture we must now turn away. We must 
set our faces toward the tasks before us. We must bravely meet our prac- 
tical problems, so long neglected, while we have been gazing upon im- 
practical visions. I look forward to an America, where all Americans will 
put their shoulders to the wheel and in a united purpose restore their 
nation to the course of good sense on which progress must and will be 
made, by deeds rather than by words. 

Is it then not a high purpose, indeed, even though it may be a simple 
one, to do the primary work of this Nation well? It is a very practical, 
every-day problem to make well done our task at home. When through 
you I hope to spread into all corners of America a program of efficiency, 
am I not asking for that idealism which goes forward to lay brick upon 
brick, rather than to place a capstone in the air? 

We have, I have said, great tasks before us, and my first principle of 
performance in any task is to summon the best counsel that can be drawn 
from any activity or any quarter of America. In going forward to pro- 
pose, create or take our becoming part in a reconstructed association of 
nations, we need the counsel of the wisest of all America. In restoring 
American agriculture to health, we will need the counsel of the farmers. 
In putting American business again upon steady feet, so that it may 
serve the welfare of all of us, so that business may learn the way of peace 
between employer and employee and maintain fair play in service to the 
consumer, we need the counsel of all the elements best fitted to guide us. 
We need in the reorganization of our government and in the prevention 
of waste in Washington, and in obtaining guarantees that there shall be 
no more prodigality, the help of the engineer, the trained technical man 
and the abilities which may be drawn from the skill of the great indus- 
trial executive and the common sense of the toiler. Of one-man judg- 
ment we have had enough. We call aloud again for the meeting of minds 
of a united country. 

215 



Our Joint Wisdom 

It is my belief that our joint wisdom will stand behind the principles 
which I have been chosen to represent. It is because you are the fore- 
runners of activity, of our economic life, of American business, which is 
not big business, but everybody's business, that I speak particularly of 
those principles which we propose shall be applied to the treatment of 
American business by the government's good sense, and also the treat- 
ment which the government so badly needs by American business sense. 

I like to think of a government which guarantees to the people of the 
United States the maintenance of a high standard of business honor, 
which preserves fair competition and acts effectively to check profiteering 
and discourage wasteful methods of marketing and distribution. But I 
like to think of a government friendly to American business and unwil- 
ling to indulge itself in mere irritating suspicion and interference. I look 
forward to a government which will have the sense to keep out of activi- 
ties which good old American genius and initiative can do better. I 
look forward to a government which will gain more information, and 
have more influence in American business, because it is the friend of 
American business. I look forward to a government which will invite 
American business to give it confidence and its confidences. I do not 
want to see American government engaging in American business, but 
I do want to see American government a friend and a partner of Ameri- 
can business. I want to see the government a partner of American busi- 
ness in the development of overseas trade and in the full protection of 
Americans abroad. I want to see the government the partner of Ameri- 
can business, and of the American business man, and of the American 
laborer, in the protection by tariff, whenever the need occurs, of Ameri- 
can business and American standards of living at home. 

American Business Efficiency 

I look forward to another phase of this partnership. I want to see 
American business, its methods and its efificiency in American govern- 
ment, t look forward to such a cessation of wastes and extravagance in 
Washington as will allow us to cut down taxation, as for instance, the 
excess profits tax, without requiring any other tax demand on the people 
of this country. I look forward to a working budget system to disclose 
the leaks and inefficiency. We need organization of departments to stop 
over-lapping of functions and the expenditure of useless energies and 
funds. I have often said, and I say again, that we owe it to the people 
of the United States to put our postal department back upon a business 
basis to provide the most efficient business service. 

We must learn to pay enough to keep in the service of the govern- 
ment, useful, faithful and loyal employees and to promote them upon 

216 



their merits, just as we must take off the payroll of the government use- 
less employees who are needed in productive occupations. 

It is this expression, my countrymen, addressed to all Americans, 
which I ask you to carr>^ away wherever you go — you who are the pio- 
neers of America's high standard of living and should ceaselessly make 
possible the distribution of the fruits of science, of genius, and of the 
sweat and toil of labor. 

I desire with all my heart that you shall tell the American people that 
I, as all true Americans, believe as firmly in the idealism of doing well 
the tasks which are set before us as I disbelieve in idealism whose only 
results are discontent, prodigality and disappointment. All who love 
America the best will believe in the idealism which is "not too proud to 
work." 

We Americans turn our faces toward an idealism which conceives 
that the rights of citizenship are founded only upon the obligations of citi- 
zenship ; that the rights to enjoy are founded only upon the obligations 
to produce. We believe in an idealism based upon such sense that it does 
not treat the nation's business with suspicion and contempt, but in the 
kind of idealism that sees in America's business the every-day tasks of 
the American people, which sees in it the labor of a nation, which sees in 
it the hope of high standards of living, which sees in it the preservation 
of equal opportunity for every man, woman and child, which sees Ameri- 
can business to be the great fabric of our activity, woven by threads of 
every human being's effort. This fabric can not be treated with contempt; 
it is one of the greatest offerings that a united people can make to God. 



217 



A SPEECH BY SENATOR WARREN G. HARDING 
AT BALTIMORE, SEPTEMBER 27, 1920 

Fellow-Americans: It is a great privilege to meet this assemblage. 
Maryland has a large place in the consciousness of America. Your citi- 
zenship has been identified with stirring events in our country's history. 
You are adding richly to our national store of learning and letters. For 
many of us, the teeming waters and fruitful shores of Maryland have 
long made existence more gracious. 

But your city and your state have come to stand for sterner things. 
America looks upon a newly-set stage today. The old order has passed, 
never to return. The World War has wrought changes as stupendous in 
the economic intercourse of nations as in their political relations. Our 
commerce, our trade, our agriculture, our industry, our finance — all are 
different, in their present phase and in their future prospect, because of 
the war and its aftermath. Old contacts have been broken, new forces 
have been aroused. There has been a shift in vital centers, and cities, 
like individuals, are facing new opportunities, and greater responsibilities. 

It needs no effort to realize how Baltimore is seeking to meet this 
changed requirement. A more intense industrial life, a growing popula- 
tion, a larger area, a busy waterfront — forerunner of an expanding com- 
merce — an alert readiness to engage in business venture and trade en- 
terprise — these are the swift impressions which crowd upon one, coming 
as I do for a hurried visit. 

Much of what you may hereafter do will depend, as heretofore, on 
yourselves — on your energy, your enterprise, your business talent and 
your industrial fidelity. But a large part will depend on the setting 
within which your efforts are staged, on the governmental policies which 
are to be initiated, on the administrative practices which are to be carried 
out — policies and practices of the government at Washington as to fi- 
nance, taxation, price levels, credit supply, business regulations, tariff 
adjustments. 

Unpreparedness for Peace 

This is the warrant for my presence here this evening. It is to make 
clear to you — men and women of Maryland — that there are certain 
things — to only a very few of which I shall be able to refer — upon which, 
almost to a peculiar degree, the well-being of your city and your state, 
and the happiness of you who live herein depend, and as to which there 
should be, on the part of governmental authority, prompt, earnest and 
sympathetic regard. 

218 



Just as at the outbreak of the war, with the country's safety at stake, 
you, as a great industrial center, swiftly mobilized your resources of men 
and materials in the nation's defense — so since the armistice you have 
wrestled with the task of beating sw^ords into plough-shares. It has been 
a task made harder and costlier by the unconcern and ineptitude of gov- 
ernmental practice. Much as the present administration has to answer 
for as to its unpreparedness for war — even more culpable has been its 
deliberate unpreparedness for peace. 

War, however protracted its length and ruthless its course, must 
eventually come to an end. Wise statesmanship will prepare for the in- 
evitable ending before it comes; taking counsel as to how the passing 
from a war-time to a peace-time basis may be effected at least cost. With 
characteristic far-sightedness. Great Britain appointed committees of 
reconstruction as far back as 1916 — actually two years before the armis- 
tice, at a time when the end of the struggle still seemed far off. Others 
of the allies took like measures of precaution, with the most favorable 
results. 

President Rejects Suggestion 

Only in the United States was there neither provision nor prepara- 
tion. Not a plan was fashioned, not a provision was made, before — or 
indeed after — the armistice, to bridge the passing from war to peace. 
This was no mere oversight, but deliberate avoidance. In September, 
1918, an earnest attempt was made in the Senate, under Republican 
sponsorship, to create by concurrent resolution a joint Congressional 
committee on reconstruction, with ample powers of inquiry and report. 
Encountering favorable reception in Congress, from members of both 
parties, the proposal met prompt quietus in the President's blunt dis- 
favor of any form of Congressional advice or suggestion as to after-war 
policies. 

The result was that the signing of the armistice ushered in a veritable 
condition of "save who can" in our economic life. Industry, commerce, 
labor, finance — ^all were left to struggle and drift, while the administra- 
tion was intent on an unavailing pursuit of an international super-gov- 
ernment and concerned as to domestic affairs only in detached oppor- 
tunism. 

It is entirely within bounds to insist that had there been a careful 
preparatory survey of the problems certain to present themselves as the 
Nation demobilized, we should have escaped many of the trials to which 
we have been subjected in the past two years and from the evil possibili- 
ties of which we are even now far from free. 

Material Help 

It would have been practicable to have effected, with far greater con- 

219 



sideration and far less dislocation, the return of the four million men 
gathered in the Nation's defense, to their accustomed places in farms 
and factories. 

The acute distress of housing shortage, consequent upon the greatly 
hindered building operations for four years, might have been measurably 
relieved by making systematically available the information on the sub- 
ject of housing construction collected during the war, and this without 
departing from established principles of federal action. 

The transition from widespread price control to free markets — a 
transition calling for all the skillful treatment which any notable inter- 
ference with free contract entails — need not have been left to take care 
of itself by a virtual policy of scuttle, or to bungling and vacillating med- 
dling. 

The huge unused stocks of essential materials and food-stuffs, con- 
tracted for or in the hands of the government at the signing of the armis- 
tice, would not have been alternately impounded and released, after a 
long delay, without method or plan, and in ways that served neither the 
interest of the producer nor the need of the consumer. 
Wiser and Sounder Practices 

Most of all, wiser and sounder practices of post-war financing might 
have been initiated that would have saved us from the pressure of ever- 
higher living costs, from the fever of business inflation, from the accu- 
mulation of a burdensome floating debt, from the retention of crudely- 
devised, inefficiently-administered war taxes, and from the present ne- 
cessity of credit restriction and business inconvenience. 

None of this is the wisdom of hindsight. In each particular — and the 
list might be made very much longer — we have suffered, over and above 
the costs and burdens of a great world convulsion, unnecessary penalties 
because of the unwillingness of the administration to concern itself with 
the vital domestic problems which reason and experience taught us must 
lay ahead. 

Were our resources less bounteous, our energies less resilient, our 
faith less strong, there would be a heavy toll still to be paid for this neg- 
lect. As it is, we shall take our losses bravely, but grimly — ^with a reso- 
lute determination that a new order must be ushered in; that without 
neglecting our part in the world's progress, our concern shall hereafter 
be "America First." This is said in no selfish, provincial spirit, in no 
thought of aloofness, but in the firm intent that only by making this 
land of ours great and its people prosperous shall we render the largest 
service to civilization and to humanity. 

Generously Endowed 

Baltimore and Maryland will play their part in this increase and bet- 

220 



terment. Nature has endowed you generously, and you will not waste 
your heritage. Your manufactureres, your trade, your finance — are 
firmly established, and there is certain to be growth and expansion, so 
long as our national policy is one to send America forward. 

I venture to say that it is in commerce that your greater opportunity 
lies. Your strategically-favorable location, your water front and water 
ways, your fine commercial traditions — place you in a position here to 
render important service to your country and to acquire signal advantage 
for yourselves, and to add to American eminence. 

No nation in all time ever came into great influence in the world ex- 
cepting as it grew to eminence in the commerce between peoples. The 
fascinating story of world civilization is marked in every chapter by the 
stamp of maritime development. 

There was a time when we outsailed the world. I delight in the ro- 
mance of the " Clippers" of three-quarters of a century ago, when Amer- 
ican sailors were as daring and triumphant in peace as John Paul Jones 
was in war. 

A Distinction Lost 

But we did not cling to our American distinction. We did not follow 
our invention of the steamship with a continued development and main- 
tenance of steamship lines. We ceased to be carriers of our own trade, 
and we encouraged our rivals by our own neglect. We neglected our navy 
until that great Democrat, Grover Cleveland, gave us an awakening in 
his reverence for the Monroe doctrine, which a present-day Democrat 
does not understand. I have a strong conviction that if our country had 
been as strong with its merchant marine as it was powerful in naval de- 
fense, our voice in behalf of peace would have been more quickly heeded. 

The war gave us the great awakening. America means to take her 
place as a sea carrier, not for ourselves alone, but to serve the world. We 
have the ships; we have the seamen; we have the cargoes; we mean to 
unfurl "Old Glory" on the peaceful paths of the seas. 

The day and the hour have arrived for operation and the maintenance 
of a great American merchant marine. We have the initial legislation, 
and need now only effective administration, backed by American de- 
termination, to hold our rightful place as a maritime nation. 

Important Piece of Legislation 

The merchant marine act of 1920, prepared under Republican leader- 
ship and passed by a Republican Congress, can be fairly described as one 
of the most important laws enacted in our generation. Like every pioneer 
undertaking, it has defects and shortcomings which time will disclose and 
experience enable us to repair. But as a legislative project, conceived in 

221 



the broadest spirit of national up-building, it stands forth as a great con- 
structive achievement. 

The purpose of the measure is, in a sentence, "the promotion and 
maintenance of a merchant marine of the best type of modern ships, fly- 
ing the American flag, manned by American seamen, owned by private 
capital and operated by private energy, fulfilling a national inspiration." 

The phenomenal emergence of a great American merchant marine is 
one of the most striking economic consequences of the World War. In 
1914, the total tonnage registered for foreign trade under the American 
flag was 1,066,000 gross tons; today, thanks to the quick sense of the 
American people as to the critical importance of shipping in the World 
War, and to the invincible genius of American industry in surmounting 
governmental delay and administrative inefificiency, there is ready for 
our flag some 12,500,000 gross tons of sea-going vessels. 

This importance of our new merchant marine is not alone that it sal- 
vages and puts to use a vast and costly body of war material, nor even 
that it adds a great new activity to the nation's business life, as well as 
a wholesome safeguard to the country's security; but, more significant 
still, it provides the mechanism wherewith we can retain and enlarge the 
economic vantage ground in world commerce and world finance which 
we now enjoy. 

For Trade Development 

A well-equipped merchant marine is a prime essential of successful 
commerce; it is the best agency of trade development. Nothing else will 
supply the same enterprises in the search for new markets, nor contribute 
the same energy in the opening up of new trade routes, nor offer the same 
encouragement for the investment abroad of our surplus capital. Over- 
seas transportation in American bottoms is of the root and essence of 
American commercial expansion. 

How urgent is the need will appear if we consider the new position of 
our Country in the world trade. In five years we have changed from a 
debtor nation, owing the world between four and five billion dollars with 
a varying annual trade balance, sometimes against us, to a creditor na- 
tion to whom the world is in debt on capital account some twelve billion 
dollars, and to whom is due an annual credit balance certainly as great, 
probably much greater, than our prior debit balance. 

It is of the gravest national concern that this changed international 
position shall not work to the injury of our industrial and agricultural 
life. We are not prepared to wipe from our books Europe's debt to us — • 
even in the unlikely event that this were seriously proposed, or would be 
accepted by debtor nations. Still less practicable is the discharge of the 
enormous indebtedness by wholesale gold imports. Larger exports of 

222 



merchandise from the debtor to the creditor country remain as the line 
of least resistance, and to this course we must be prepared to see Europe 
bending every effort. It is the natural way in which restorations from war 
must be wrought. 

Flood of Imports 

But a flood of imports from debtor countries intent upon stimulating 
their productive output, and aided, even though undesignedly, by an un- 
favorable foreign exchange, would be a bitter experience for the creditor 
country. We mean to deal considerately, we want to help, but we do not 
mean to paralyze America to effect a restoration. 

It would be incomparably better for our credits to remain uncollected, 
and our balances to be waived, than for liquidation to take the form of 
an undermining flood of imports — whether products of factory, mine or 
farm — that would cripple American industry, degrade American labor 
and weaken our whole economic fabric. 

From any such invasion we have a right to be saved. Our new mer- 
chant marine will do much to avert it. Supplemented, now and when- 
ever occasion requires, by a cautious revision of the tariff, that, while 
regardful of our changed international position, will effectually safeguard 
every phase of American industry and agriculture, the new shipping de- 
velopment will become a potent element in American economic growth 
without the accompaniment of social injury. 

New Industries Spring Up 

In Maryland, as in many other sections of the country, new indus- 
tries have sprung up in the war years, sometimes directly related to war 
needs, more often to supply goods which we had been in the habit of buy- 
ing abroad, but which commercial blockade and trade interruption had 
kept from us. We were called to self-reliance. 

Into these new factories and mills, fields and mines, the productive 
energy of American enterprise has poured. To them have been drawn 
large bodies of workmen, receiving favorable wages and providing decent 
living standards for themselves and their families. These men have been 
moved by an enlightened self-interest. But they have added to the na- 
tion's strength and its well-being. Moreover, they are of the substance 
of which American industrial greatness is built — courageous and self- 
reliant. They clamor for no favor; they stand ready to face the recur- 
ring business cycles of good and bad times. But they ask for fair play ; 
that the government which has sanctioned their rise and encouraged 
their growth shall not now be passive witness to their undoing by an 
abrupt competitive invasion, whether in the form of "dumping" or stim- 
ulated foreign production, which they are neither mature nor strong 

223 



enough to resist, and which America does not mean to ask that they shall 
resist. Prosper "America First!" 

Proper protection, American industry and American labor have the 
right to expect. This much they should properly receive. It would be 
an intolerable thing if we stood by and beheld our enterprise impaired 
and our labor injured. If it be placed in responsible control in the Novem- 
ber election, the Republican Party solemnly engages that this shall not 
come to pass. The stability of American industry, the prosperity of 
American agriculture, the security of American labor — these shall be its 
purpose — to be achieved by deliberate tariff revision, protective revision, 
whenever and wherever the necessity exists. 

After all, we may never forget that men and not things are the end 
for which our government exists. The bigness of a country or of a state 
counts for little, if those who live in it are stunted and cramped, not from 
their own fault, but because fair chance is denied them. We boast proud- 
ly of America as "The Land of Opportunity." Let us see to it that those 
to whom industrial opportunity has been given and who have sought to 
embrace it, be not thereafter despoiled by our neglect and disregard, but 
held capable of embracing beckoning opportunity. 
Allegiance to Principle 

With that recklessness which is the excuse for loose thinking, spokes- 
men of the Democratic Party have stigmatized the Republican platform 
as "reactionary." Like many another epithet, the term seeks to malign 
by abuse what it can not indict by reason. 

It is true that in political affairs we would "re act" from an era of 
executive usurpation to the orderly form of constitutional government; 
that in industrial relations we would "re-act" from an internationalist's 
obsession to intimate concern in our domestic problems and our home 
tasks; that in social matters we would "re-act" from a muddling of the 
public mind to an honest avowal of facts and causes. But in all that 
makes for economic stability, for industrial justice, for social improve- 
ment — our faces are toward the morrow. 

The party of Lincoln and of Roosevelt stands sharply aligned with 
its finest traditions in that which touches man's duty to man. Forward- 
looking, progressive, unswerving in devotion to constitutional govern- 
ment, resentful of executive absolutism — it proclaims unfaltering allegi- 
ance to the great principles of justice and humanity upon which this 
Republic was founded, and from which, pray God, we shall never depart. 



224 



A SPEECH BY SENATOR WARREN G. HARDING 

AT WHEELING, W. VA., SEPTEMBER 

28, 1920 

Government is a political and not a business agency, but it does a good 
deal of business, nevertheless. The business of our government is 
enormous in extent and is constantly growing greater and more complex. 
It is carried on, however, by methods so crude, so wanting in plan and 
system, that if it were a private business of equal magnitude with fixed 
resources, instead of public business with well-nigh unlimited resources, 
we should have gone into liquidation and closed our doors long ago. No 
private business can possibly survive without keeping its expenditures 
within the limits of its income, but the government goes on, year after 
year, with no real effort to maintain the balance between income and out- 
go. No business can be carried on successfully without a strict appli- 
cation of business methods, and government business presents no excep- 
tion to the rule. Hence it is that this government of ours, in its financial 
and business operations, would long ago have proved a colossal failure 
were it not for the power which it possesses to take from the pockets 
of the people unlimited monies to renew the lavish stream which flows 
from its treasury. 

Not only are we not living within our means in spite of an almost un- 
bearable burden of taxation, but we are constantly adding to our public 
indebtedness and thereby passing on to our children a constantly-grow- 
ing obligation to be met by an ever-increasing exaction from the re- 
sources of the people. 

To Increase the Burden 

The most recent suggestion for increasing this burden of debt is 
that the secretary of the treasury contemplates putting out a new loan 
in a series of notes aggregating about $400,000,000. It is to be offered 
in the form of treasury certificates bearing interest at 5^ and six per 
cent. The secretary accompanies his announcement of this loan to the 
banks with a circular letter in which he reveals some very interesting 
information respecting the financial condition of the treasury. This 
information, to be exact, is that in the first two months of the current 
year — that is, the months of July and August — our expenditures ex- 
ceeded our receipts by the enormous sum of $125,305,710.63. The 
receipts of the government during those two months approximated 
$628,767,191.13 and its expenditures $754,072,901.76. 

The secretary's letter further indicates that, notwithstanding the 

225 



optimistic predictions of the administration a few weeks ago that the 
peak of the national debt had been passed, the national debt in fact was 
materially increased during these two months. On August 31, the debt 
was $24,324,672,123.00 as against $24,299,321,467.00 on June 30. 

Thus we stand, nearly two years after the close of the war, with our 
expenditures still exceeding our income at a rate which, if continued, 
will approximate a billion dollars a year, and with our national debt in- 
creasing, instead of decreasing. 

Saved by Congress 

Pursuing figures a little further, we discover that, while the adminis- 
tration is creating a deficit at a rate which approaches a billion dollars a 
year, but for a Republican Congress the deficit would be more nearly 
three billions than one. It is a matter of record that the present Demo- 
cratic administration requested Congress to appropriate for its purposes 
during the current fiscal year, the enormous sum of $5,685,812,929. A 
Republican Congress, after an investigation of these demands, appro- 
priated $4,373,395,279, thereby effecting a saving for the tax-payers 
of more than $1,312,000,000. This same Congress, at the special session 
immediately preceding, denied requests of the Democratic administra- 
tion for excessive appropriations aggregating more than $1,685,000,000. 

Where would we be today, if it had not been for this Republican Con- 
gress, which in the space of less than two years, has reduced appropria- 
tions by billions of dollars while the Democratic administration which 
sought these enormous sums has been spending money at the rate of 
a billion dollars a year beyond the amounts actually appropriated by 
Congress? 

In the face of these facts, our opponents have had the temerity to 
charge the Republican Congress with extravagance. Passing the obvious 
conclusion that if our appropriations were too large democratic expen- 
ditures greatly exceeding them must be utterly inexcusable, what shall be 
said of the demands of the administration for appropriations vastly ex- 
ceeding either what we authorized or what they spent? If the appro- 
priations made by the Republican Congress may be fittingly character- 
ized as "extravagant," where shall we find an adjective with which to 
characterize the demands of the administration for sums exceeding 
them by almost three billion dollars? 

Increases the Cost 

It has become imperative for us to inquire into the reasons for these 
tremendous deficits, these requests for enormous appropriations, and 
this present necessity for the government to go into the open market 
and compete with legitimate private business for money at high interest 
rates. It is obvious that when the government of the United States of- 

226 



fers 5^ and 6 per cent, for money, the effect is to drive higher and 
higher the interest rates on industrial and business loans, and thereby 
to increase the cost of doing business and consequently the cost of 
living. By offering these rates, with tax-free privileges attached thereto, 
the government is not only drawing out of the banks of the country 
large sums which otherwise would serve to supply the insistent needs 
of industry, but is also contributing to the already alarming depre- 
ciation of its own Liberty bonds purchased at par by a patriotic people 
for the winning of the war. Industrial reports from one end of the country 
to the other indicate a falling-off in business, an increase in the interest 
rate charged to business men for legitimate commercial and indus- 
trial loans, a stringency in the money market, a dearth in building, 
while many in the country find it impossible to get homes suitable for 
their accommodation. These conditions are due, either directly or in- 
directly, to the gigantic failure of the present Democratic administra- 
tion to function as a business organization. It has drawn the very 
life blood from the channels of business to keep itself alive — a process 
which, if continued, will inevitably produce a collapse of our industrial 
system. 

Without a Workable Plan 

The reason for this is simple. The administration went into the world 
war without any workable plan of finance. It came out of the war 
without such a plan. It still is without such a plan. Only last June, 
through its directing head, the president of the United States, it re- 
jected such a plan when Congress sought to furnish it with one. 

Brigadier General H. M. Lord, the director of finance in the war de- 
partment, when testifying before the house budget committee, said : 

"The war department since April 6, 1917, has had appropriated for 
its use $24,304,388,343.97. 

"The war department entered this war without any fixed and deter- 
mined or carefully-digested and prepared financial system. It was im- 
possible under the statutory organization existing to have such a system." 

General Lord pointed out that at the beginning there were five 
statutory bureaus within the war department, each independent of 
the other; each making its own contracts, doing its own purchasing, 
making its own disbursements, and doing its own accounting, with as 
many different methods as there were bureaus. 

"As a result," he said "they were competing with each other in a 
field, in a market, where the supplies in many cases for which they were 
competing were restricted in amount. Later on these five independent 
bureaus were increased to twelve, each proceeding in the same way." 

What General Lord said of the war department was true practically 

2ZJ 



of every other department, and of government as a whole during the 
war. It is just as true today as when he said it several months ago. 

It was to bring order out of this confusion that the Republican House 
and the Republican Senate appointed special committees to consider 
the need and the creation of a national budget system — a system which 
at one stroke would give us a sound plan of fiscal administration and 
provide for a real audit of our governmental expenditures each year. 

Vetoed by President 

The two committees, after months of earnest work, formulated a bill 
to give our government a real business system. Their work done, the 
measure drawn, they sumbitted it to the two Houses of Congress which 
after amendment and conference, approved it without a single dissent- 
ing vote and sent it to the White House. There it lay for days — until 
the closing hours of the session of Congress — when it came back with 
the presidential veto — a veto which did not relate to its great construc- 
tive features, but to a small detail of partisan politics. In the short 
time left for them to act before Congress adjourned, the committees re- 
vised the bill in the slight particular, submitted it to their respective 
Houses, only to have it killed in the Senate by a filibuster conducted by 
three Democratic Senators. 

We have heard during the last few days from the Democratic ad- 
ministration at Washington that it needs money, more money, always 
more money, to maintain the government for the current year. 

And during these same days we have heard from a Democratic 
candidate, who has announced himself to be in entire accord with the 
head of this Democratic administration, that if he is elected to the 
presidency he will give to the people of this country a budget system 
such as the present president, with whom he says he is in accord, re- 
jected only last June. 

Economy is Scorned 

Let me speak for a moment of the years which are just behind us. 
Until the World War came it was easy for the government to make 
a good showing — a good financial statement. I should say — though 
those in charge gave little attention to the way money was raised and 
even less the way it was spent. Our country was rich, our people were 
generous. They did not object to taxation. In fact, the great majority 
hardly knew they were being taxed at all because of our Republican 
methods of indirect taxation. It was difificult to get officials in Wash- 
ington or the people generally to heed the trend of the times. 

When I say it was difificult to get the officials in Washington to take 
notice, I must make an exception. President Taft, a sincere advocate 
of governmental efficiency, appointed a commission of efficiency and 

228 



economy to study means of increasing the efficiency of the government 
and reducing the cost to the tax-payers. This commission reported 
at a time when the country was in a state of political turmoil. Its re- 
port, tremendously valuable in the information it contained and in the 
suggestions it put forth, was completely lost sight of during the stress 
of one of the bitterest campaigns in the political history of America. 
Mr. Taft went out of office. His successor was pledged by his party plat- 
form to a return to simplicity in government and to a reduction in the 
expenditures of the government, but he promptly cast aside the report 
of the Taft efficiency and economy commission as well as the Democratic 
platform which pledged economy and efficiency. Governmental expen- 
ditures continued to mount upward, taxes continued to increase, until 
we entered the World War, and that war engulfed us in a financial 
cataclysm such as the world had never seen before. 

A Financial Orgy 

A two-billion dollar Congress was followed by a forty-billion dollar 
Congress. From a debt of practically nothing, we went to a national debt 
of twenty-five billion dollars, the interest on which alone is greater than 
our aggregate annual expenditures for any year in the history of our 
government up to that immediately preceding our entrance into the 
World War. I need not enter into a detailed description of the financial 
orgy which was staged in Washington during the war. The necessities 
of the war are past. But we must find means to pay the expenses of our 
government and reduce our great national debt, without undue or im- 
proper burdens of taxation, and we must increase the business efficiency 
of our government. 

A casual study of our financial history indicates that while our popu- 
lation is now but slightly more than three times what it was at the close 
of the civil war, our debt has increased more than ten-fold. A review of 
the history of state, county and municipal taxation shows that the in- 
crease in the tax rate throughout the country for the purposes of these 
various units of government has been greater even than the increase in 
the federal tax rate. There has been no proper proportion between in- 
crease in population and wealth and the increase in the cost of govern- 
ment whether local, state or federal. We must establish such a relation- 
ship and establish it promptly if we are to avoid governmental bank- 
ruptcy. 

Blocked By President 

If some one should ask why has Congress not done so, I answer that 
Congress tried but the president of the United States blocked the reform. 

In the whole history of the government of the United States there 
has never been an administration which has asked from Congress less 

229 



money for the conduct of government in one year than the aggregate 
amount it received from Congress in the preceding year. In the whole 
history of our government the only economy which has been effected 
has been effected by Congress and through congressional committees. 
I do not assert that the Congress has always been perfect or justified 
in all of its work in reducing departmental estimates. No one will 
claim that; but I do insist that those who are ready to criticise Congress 
for its handling of expenditures should take note of these facts. I do 
assert that, but for Congress, our taxes today would be vastly greater 
than they are. 

For a Sound Basis 

Now, as I have told you, the last Congress, a Republican Congress, 
sought to take steps which would put our government on a business 
footing. It submitted to the president a measure which would have 
placed the United States government on a sounder business basis than 
any other government in the world today enjoys. In addition to this, 
it set up an independent establishment — and by independent, I mean free 
from the influence either of the executive or the legislative branch — 
to audit the accounts of the various spending agencies of the govern- 
ment. This agency was to ascertain: first, whether the monies appro- 
priated were expended as directed by the Congress; second, whether the 
results of the expenditures justified their appropriation by Congress; 
and third, whether in the opinion of the comptroller general, the head of 
the accounting office, Congress should increase or decrease or eliminate 
particular expenditures for the ensuing year. We have no such system 
today although it is in operation in every great business. 

Our budget bill virtually would have compelled the president — not 
the present executive alone, but each of his successors — before the be- 
ginning of each fiscal year, to call his cabinet into consultation, agree 
upon a program of financial policy, and then carry it into operation. 

The bill made the president responsible for the preparation of the 
budget. It created an agency for his assistance, consisting of the secre- 
tary of the treasury and another person to be appointed by the presi- 
dent without confirmation by the Senate. The effect was to put upon 
the president as the chief executive, elected by all the people, the 
responsibility of initiating all requests for money. The result would 
be, as you can plainly see, to put in the place of the present chaotic 
condition of divided and sometimes conflicting responsibility thorough- 
going team work among the departments and ultimate single responsi- 
bility in the hands of the president himself. 

The Present Method 

Today every bureau chief estimates the amount which he will 

230 



need for the ensuing year without relation to the expenditures of the 
other bureaus and departments. These estimates, when finally col- 
lected, are delivered to Congress, where, in the past, they have been 
distributed among a number of appropriating committees which have 
proceeded to their consideration without reference to the work done 
by other appropriating committees. 

I am frank to admit that not all of the reform desired can be ac- 
complished simply by changing the methods of the executive branch of 
the government. Congress also must reform its prodecure, and I am glad 
to say that the House has taken the first step in this direction by pro- 
viding for a single great committee on appropriations which will give 
consideration to the entire budget of the government, as a related 
whole, and, through various sub-committees, so parcel out its work 
that it can be co-ordinated and handled expeditiously and economically. 

The Senate has pending a resolution looking toward similar reform 
in its procedure, and I am sure that it is the plan of the Senate leaders 
so to change their organization as to conform with the plans for greater 
economic and administrative efficiency in our government. 

The budget system will save the people of this country many mil- 
lions of dollars annually, and surely such a saving is worth while and 
should not be delayed. One has only to glance at the record of the last 
few years to realize that this change is most necessary. 

The Financial Progression 

We have proceeded from a half-billion-dollar Congress to a one-bil- 
lion-dollar Congress; from a one-billion-dollar Congress to a two-billion- 
dollar Congress; and from a two-billion -dollar Congress by one great 
leap to a forty-billion-dollar Congress. 

When the war came upon us every department of the government 
seized upon it to expand its activities in order to help win the victory, 
and when the war closed these departments, which had expanded greatly 
for purposes of war, sought still further expansion for purposes of peace 
and reconstruction. 

Congress refused to grant the enormous increases requested by the 
departments. It reduced them materially. Still, at best. Congress was 
able to give these huge estimates only a general survey. 

There is today no agency whose chief business it is to investigate 
and pass upon the necessity of appropriations sought by the various 
departments of the government, and it is impossible for Congress or 
congressional committees, in the short time they have to work, to make 
this particular study in detail. But with the creation of a budget system 
such as was worked out in the measure which Congress passed and the 
president vetoed, there would be set up in Washington an establishment 

231 



which would have full and complete knowledge of every activity of the 
government and which would always be at the service of Congress, and 
of the people, when either desired information concerning the actual 
fiscal activities of the administration as a whole or of any particular 
bureau or department. 

Change Is Needed 

It must be apparent to a 1 that a change is needed. It is necessary to 
correct this evil system — or, shall I say, lack of system — ^without fur- 
ther delay. It is necessary to put our government on a business basis 
at once. 

As an important step in that direction, there must be made expert 
and thorough-going investigation and survey of the various executive 
departments, to the end that we may find and w^eed out every unnecessary 
clerk, division and bureau; discover and end or modernize every archaic 
method ; ascertain and consolidate as far as possible the various agencies 
— and there are many of them — where there is a duplication of service. 
It is high time that we quit scolding about these evils in our system of 
executive government and took up the task of their practical reforma- 
tion. 

Many countries of the Old World are trembling upon the brink of 
financial and economic ruin. We are almost the only solvent concern 
among the great nations of the earth, and there are alarming por- 
tents even for us. We must conserve our resources, systematize our busi- 
ness management, curtail our expenditures, if we would be saved. Econ- 
omy—economy — and still again, economy — must be the watchword 
of the hour. To spend more than is received in the long run is as fatal 
to a government as it is to an individual. In 1916, we had 296,926 
civil employes upon the national pay roll. Today, two years after the 
end of the war, while we do not know the exact number, the civil service 
commission concedes there are 657,744. 

No Real Reduction 

The Democratic administration has made no real effort to reduce 
this enormous number to the limits of necessity. The places are filled 
with "deserving Democrats" and the Democratic Party will continue to 
care for its own, so long as it shall retain the power to do so; but if I 
am elected, I promise you now that this outrageous pay roll will be 
pruned of its super-abundant material and a good many thousands of 
your fellow citizens restored to the farms and industries of the country 
where their services are so badly needed. 

We have a great country, a patriotic people. Our resources seem 
almost unlimited. Yet there is a limit. And unless we check the existing 
system of waste and extravagance, we shall run head on into disaster. 

232 



I believe in a national budget. I believe that the president and his 
cabinet advisors, before the opening of each fiscal year, should meet 
and plan the business of the government for that year. I believe they 
should give consideration to the relative value of specific services; that 
they should use every effort to eliminate waste and duplication in these 
services; and bring the government to the performance of the fullest 
possible service to the people at the least possible cost. I would place our 
government on the soundest business basis. I would summon to my 
assistance in this work the ablest men in the country. I would insist 
that they plan for us a practicable business policy, and I would see to it 
that such a policy was carried out. 

There are those who insist that our government is so strong financi- 
ally it can not be wrecked. This is not true, but the way is open to 
us to give it that strength. It is for us, who are called to service, if 
we are called, to follow that road, and for my part, I promise to point 
the way. 



A SPEECH BY SENATOR WARREN G. HARDING 

TO DELEGATION OF WOMEN VOTERS, 

MARION, OHIO, OCTOBER 1, 1920 

Americans : Today the people of Marion and their neighbors welcome 
you. You represent the achievements of the women of America. You 
represent, indeed, an extension of woman's field of endeavor, which is a 
benefaction to the world. I believe that this extension of woman's activi- 
ties has been taken, and must forever be taken, without peril to the ful- 
filment of that most precious of all American possessions — America's 
motherhood. 

I have been asked repeatedly to make an especial appeal to the wo- 
men of this country, but I have not done and I shall not do, such a thing. 
If there are among women the virtues of stalwart conscience and the 
finest appreciation of the needs of humanity, as I think there are, then 
the words that might be in my heart to say to women would be better 
addressed by me to the men of the United States. 

I have refused, and I refuse now, to make an emotional or meretric- 
ious appeal to the hearts of the women of America. When we all ack- 
nowledge that the time and the conditions of the world call for fuller 
recognition of human rights, the protection of the life of human beings 
and the conservation of our human resources, it becomes the duty of the 
women of America, and it becomes my duty, to deal with these matters 
of social justice upon a high plane of an idealism which is not too proud 

233 



to work. More, it is our duty to consider without hypocrisy or high- 
sounding phrases a program of action. And it is my duty to address not 
only you who are women, now entering by justice, by the principles of 
sound democracy, and by the wisdom of a progressive civilization, into 
citizenship, but also to address, through you, every American who is in- 
terested in our common welfare, 

I pledge myself today to support with all that is in me whatever prac- 
tical policy of social welfare and social justice can be brought forward 
by the combined wisdom of all Americans. Nothing can concern America, 
and nothing can concern me as an American, more deeply than the health 
the happiness and the enlightenment of every fellow- American. 

Wo uld Have All America Safe 

I believe that none of us can be safe and happy or reach our finest 
growth until we have done our utmost to see that all Americans are safe. 
I believe that, if a wise God notes a sparrow's fall, no life can be so ob- 
scure and humble that it shall become of no consequence to America. 

Only by reason of the depth and permanence of such belief can be 
founded our grave duty and our solemn obligation to consider the sub- 
ject of social justice without mere emotion, without mere inspirational 
words, without mere entrancing phrases, without mere slogans, but with 
that wisdom which is needed when the desire of our hearts and heads 
must be translated into terms of living action and actual achievement. 

The social justice that I conceive is not paternalism. It would be 
easy to make it so, and dangerous indeed to the best spirit that Americans 
can have — the spirit of expressing by the individual free will one's own 
merits, capacity and worth. We do not want government to suppress 
that expression of free will, even by benevolence, but we do mean to pre- 
serve in America an equal opportunity and a preparedness for self-ex- 
pression therein, even though we use the government to do it. 

Not a Mere Sentiment 

Social justice, on the other hand, is not a mere sentiment. To my 
mind a social justice policy in government can not and should not be con- 
fined to a program for the flow of benefits from some uncertain and iliagic 
source at the seat of government. I could not even consider a policy of 
social justice which is conceived, as so many visionaries conceive it, as 
a right of mankind. I will only consider it as an obligation of mankind. 

I refuse to subscribe to the doctrine which has gone so far to delude 
the world that even citizenship is based upon rights. I believe, and have 
repeatedly said, that citizenship is based upon obligation. 

I will not even approach the consideration of a policy of social justice 
unless it is founded on the stalwart American doctrine of the duties of 

234 



every one of us to all of us. The first measure of social justice to which 
America must always devote herself is the duty of citizenship to vote 
with conscience, to preserve laws and to demand their enforcement. It 
is the obligation of all true Americans to live clean lives and to engage 
with head and hand in honest, useful production and toil. 
Best Social Welfare Worker 

The best social welfare worker in the world is the man or woman who 
lives righteously and does the task well which he or she is most capable 
of doing, thereby adding to the sum total of human accomplishment. 

Civilization, however, has recognized, and sound administration of 
public affairs will recognize with increasing conviction, that individual- 
ism and the free-willed self-expression of the individual, even the safety 
and the prosperity of all of us may not be maintained if we do not act 
together to maintain them. Such maintenance, wisely undertaken, is 
directed either to the task of upholding the standards of all of us, such 
as the standards of public sanitation and education, or it is directed to- 
ward the few who have not had enough of equal opportunity to guarantee 
them participation in equal opportunity. 

The task before us — to build high standards of social justice in Amer- 
ica — is sometimes badly defined, and I think we all regret that the meth- 
ods to be pursued have been allowed to fly without definite understand- 
ing of their landing places. Social justice, like the phrase "self-determin- 
ation of free people," is a slogan which sounds so well that the world is 
beguiled away from deciding what wise things may be really done about it. 

For my part, I have no taste and no conscience which will allow me 
to talk to Americans with phrases which I myself can not define and with 
a program which is not practical and capable of fulfilment. 

Let us be practical in our idealism. Let us plan the things we can 
wisely do, and then do them. 

I believe that there is no step more practical, no step which will mean 
more to the growth of America's social welfare; no step which will guaran- 
tee better America's social justice, than one which I now propose to you. 
Department of Public Welfare 

There can be no more efficient way of advancing a humanitarian pro- 
gram than by adapting the machinery of our federal government to the 
purposes we desire to attain. While others may have their fyes fixed 
upon some particular piece of legislation, or some particular policy of 
social justice which calls for the sympathetic interest of us all, T si; , with- 
out hesitation, that our primary consideration must be the ra;. iunery of 
administration, and that when the time comes for us t « reort;anize our 
administrative government in Washington, we must - ' sta? i together 
for the creation of a department of public welfare. 

235 



It is almost useless for us to go on expending our energies in advancing 
humanitarian policies which we wish put into effect, and it is useless for 
us to hope for the effective administration of humanitarian policies al- 
ready undertaken by the federal government, until we have prepared to 
create an administrative center for the application of our program. 

At the present time we find social welfare bureaus and social welfare 
undertakings scattered hopelessly through the departments, sometimes 
the one overlapping the work of the other, and sometimes, indeed, en- 
gaging in bickerings between themselves. The picture is one of ineffi- 
ciency and of wasted funds. 

Let us not only have social justice and social welfare developed to the 
fullest extent which a wise citizenship will approve, but let us have also 
the means with which to make social justice and social welfare real and 
functioning, rather than visionary and inefficient. 

I have no doubt that there will be some who will find in this proposal 
cause for calling me an extremist, but when we have a task to do, which 
has been dictated by our conscience and approved by our wisdom, let 
us straightway find the way to do it. I do not say this without a word of 
caution. I recognize certain dangers which are always presented when 
government undertakes large and detailed tasks. I have said already, 
today, that we must avoid paternalism, and that we must avoid it be- 
cause a paternalistic social welfare program would smother some of the 
liberties, some of the dignity, and some of the freedom for self-expression 
of our individuals. 

Avoid Results of Bureaucracy 

In creating federal departments for the administration of social justice 
and social welfare, we must avoid the fearful results of bureaucracy. I 
am inclined to think that as between a bureaucracy of a military power 
which paid little attention to the regulating of domestic affairs, and a 
bureaucracy of social rules and regulations, the latter would oppress the 
soul of a country more. We do not want, and we will not have, either in 
America. Undoubtedly the great blessings of our constitution, appear- 
ing, indeed, as if our constitution had been written by the hand of Provi- 
dence, are the checks which it places upon the development in a national 
center of a great bureaucratic paternalism. We are momentarily irritated 
at times when we desire to enact measures, which appear to be dedicated 
wholly to the welfare of mankind, when we find that constitutional lim- 
itations prevent their legality. But we have been saved through these 
many years; and will be saved throughout America's continued progress 
from the growth of too much centralism, too much paternalism, too much 
bureaucracy, and too r^-uch infringement of the individual's right to con- 
struct his own life wit'i.n our American standards of reason and justice. 

236 



I would like to point out to all America that there is grave danger at 
hand when centralized expression begins to take from local communities 
all the burdens of social conscience. The best that humanity knows 
comes up from the individual man and woman through the sacred insti- 
tutions of the family and the home, and, perhaps, finds its most effective 
application in the community where life is personal, and where there is 
not an attempt to cut men and women to pattern and treat mankind as 
a wholesale commodity. 

I like to think of an America, whose spirit flows up from the bottom 
and is not handed down from the top. I like to think that the virtue of 
the family is the combined virtue of its members, and that the virtue of 
a community is the combined standards of virtue of its citizens. I 
like to think of a nation whose virtue is the combined virtue of its 
communities. For such is America; such may she always be! 

Up From the People 

So long as her expression flows up from the people, and not down from 
a centralized autocracy, however that autocracy may label itself, Ameri- 
ca will live in all her virile strength. When we create in Washington a 
strong federal government and undertake, even for the most humani- 
tarian purposes, new federal burdens, let us with all reverence pray that 
we shall never by this means put to sleep the spirit, the sense of duty, 
and the activities of the communities and neighborhoods of the United 
States, I raise these cautions, not because I am doubtful of the wisdom 
of the federal government doing all that it can to conserve the human 
resources of the United States, but, on the contrary, because I believe 
we must move forward upon a sure footing, without undertaking im- 
practical or unwise programs which lead to disillusionment, and in the 
end retard, rather than accelerate, the expression of American conscience 
and its application to the welfare of the American people. 

With these cautions, however, guiding us, as we go forward, to create, 
if possible, the right kind of federal machinery for social justice, we will 
feel more confidence in creating a federal department of public welfare. 
When making the proposal for a department of public welfare to Amer- 
ica, I am aware that I have made a step in advance of any platform. I 
have chosen to speak to you on the practical question — the question of 
how to do the tasks we must do, the things American conscience is call- 
ing to have done. 

We all know that we face tasks of social justice, which we must 
undertake with despatch and efficiency. Who can suggest one of these 
tasks which can supersede in our hearts, or in the rank which foresight 
and wisdom will give, that of the protection of our maternity? 

237 



Protection of Motherhood 

The protection of the motherhood of America can not be accomplished 
until the state and the Nation have enacted and, by their example, have 
enforced customs, which protect womanhood itself. I know full well that 
there are women who insist that women shall be treated upon the same 
basis that men are treated. They would have a right to take this position 
in their own behalf, but I insist, that all true Americans must insist, that 
no woman speaks for herself alone. She is the possessor of our future, and 
though she becomes engaged in the tasks and services of civilization, we 
must preserve to her the right of wholesome maternity. 

We no longer are speaking of a small group. Twelve million women 
in the United States, forty per cent of them between fifteen and twenty 
years of age, are engaged in paid occupations or professions. Such an 
army of potential maternity demands from America careful and adequate 
protection in the conditions which surround their labors. For such an 
army there must be an increasing enlightenment in industry and business 
which will tend to break down distinctions of sex in matters of remuner- 
ation, and establish equal pay for equal work. The needs of such an army, 
engaging in the tasks of America, probably can not be understood by 
men alone. In the administration of federal and state laws, and in the 
educational services which will assist industry and the public, and the 
women themselves, to understand the needs of women, we will require 
the services of the most capable women we can get upon federal and state 
boards of employment, labor adjustment and, indeed, wherever the wel- 
fare of maternity and the welfare of American childhood, directly or re- 
motely, are involved. 

For Eight-Hour Day 

There is a growing and a probably wise sentiment in America in favor 
of an eight-hour day everywhere for women. The federal government 
has set the example in a policy which looks toward the protection of our 
best human resources. Justice and American standards demand that 
women, who are employed, should be paid a living wage, and it is en- 
tirely unfair to the state which fulfils its obligations to humanity in any 
piece of humanitarian legislation affecting industry, that other states, 
by failing to perform their obligation, gain a temporary advantage in 
costs of production. I believe that one of the principal functions of the 
department of public welfare will be to enlighten and educate local action, 
so that we may have throughout our states an increasing sense of obliga- 
tion to meet a national standard of social justice. 

I desire particularly to emphasize the need of safeguarding the pros- 
perity of the American farmer, so that he may compete with industry 
in obtaining labor. I am hearing constantly voices raised in behalf of the 

238 



women in industry. I desire to raise mine now in behalf of the women on 
the farms of the United States, who in the labor shortage of this year 
have gone into the fields — young girls and old women — to give a service 
which, if it had not been given, would have deprived us this year of an 
adequate food supply. There must be labor, normal labor, available to 
farm as well as factory. 

One of the important organizations under a department of public wel- 
fare might well be the children's bureau which now exists, but whose 
work, already proved so useful, must be extended and made still more 
capable of educating and assisting in pre-natal care and early infancy. 
It is for us a grim jest, indeed, that the federal government is spending 
twice as much money for the suppression of hog cholera as it spends for 
its entire program for the welfare of the American child. 

Our Death Rate High 

We are not doing, however, enough for the future citizens of America 
if we allow women to injure, by industry or ignorance, their maternity, 
or if we allow infancy itself to go unprotected from disease and unintel- 
ligence. Among sixteen important countries of the world, thirteen show 
a lower death rate for mothers than does the United States, and six show 
a lower death rate for very young children. Nearly a quarter of a million 
babies — practically a number equal to the entire casualty list of our men 
in the great war — die every year. 

It will not be the America we love which will neglect the American 
mother and the American child. The program to prevent abuses of child 
labor, already greatly advanced by Republican efforts, represents the 
progress of legislation toward wise prevention, which will receive the 
sanction of constitutional law. When we first legislated to remedy the 
abuses of child labor, approximately one Out of five children between the 
ages of ten and fifteen in the United States were wage-earners. I do not 
say that among them there were not many exceptions, whose labors were 
of Such a nature as to fit them to become better men and women, but I 
do say that in the mass, their labor represented the theft of their right 
to childhood, to happiness, to health, and of their right to prepare to 
embrace ouV equal opportunity, to realize for America their capacity and 
worth as future citizens. This condition we could not neglect, and we can 
not neglect the problems of child labor in this country. Even if it were 
not upon humanitarian grounds, I point out to you that the protection 
of American maternity and childhood represents economic thrift. Indeed, 
it represents the saving of our blood, our posterity, and the future strength 
of our nation. 

Our National Health 

Next to maternity and childhood, I believe that our attention must 

239 



be centered upon our national health. I have said repeatedly through 
this campaign that between twenty-five and thirty-three and one-third 
per cent of the young men examined in our first draft for war were found 
to be defective, or physically unfit. Examinations of children in the pub- 
lic schools of America disclose that fifty per cent of them are suffering 
from physical delinquencies, most of which proper attention would rem- 
edy before maturity. I believe, therefore, that we must undertake with 
great seriousness the problem of our national health. I am alert to the 
danger of too much oppressive bureaucracy in any great federal health 
bureau, but I want to see the various agencies grouped together in a 
department of public welfare. I want to see their principal function, that 
of stimulating, by research and education, the communities and local 
governments of the United States to the most active and sufificient cam- 
paign against low standards of physical well-being. We must attack, 
first, a low standard of health among children ; secondly, the invasion of 
diseases which attend a low standard of morals; and thirdly, the invasion 
of epidemics, and the neglect of the chronic diseases of maturity, many 
of which are due to a failure on the part of individuals to adjust their 
living and habits to an artificial civilization. 

It is not possible to discuss in detail all of the measures of social jus- 
tice which sooner or later the people of this country will probably have 
to consider and adopt and put into action, or reject as impracticable. 
But I do conceive an obligation of government, to devote grave atten- 
tion to another group of problems which are all humanitarian, and which 
are of vital importance to our future. 

To Reunite Parties of Discord 

I have spoken during this campaign of my attitude toward industrial 
peace. I have stated my full belief in labor unionism and in the practice 
of collective bargaining, and I have also tried to emphasize a belief, 
which I feel deeply, that industrial peace, though it may be attained by 
adjustment and conciliation, can never stand upon its firmest founda- 
tion until a higher sense of loyalty to the task permeates the worker, and 
a higher sense of humanitarian brotherhood permeates the employers of 
America. I do not think of this reawakening of a higher conscience upon 
both sides in terms of generalities, and I regard it as being one of the 
humane functions of which our government is capable to saturate the 
industrial life of our country with a spirit which will tend to reunite par- 
ties of discord. 

We are often presented with conditions which result in industrial con- 
troversy, but which may not be charged to either side. I speak specifically 
of two examples: The first involves the unrest, the discontent, which 
arises from unsteady employment. It is not a condition to be remedied 

240 



alone by federal employment bureaus filling in the gaps of unemployment, 
but rests largely upon conditions of industry which make for seasonal 
production and periodic closing and opening of industrial plants and oc- 
cupations. I am enough of an optimist to believe that government can 
assist in the abolition of this most unfortunate condition. I am even 
enough of an optimist to believe that the government can take a large 
part in a second and, perhaps, even more important campaign. I believe 
that many of our workers are engaged in tasks, which have been so spe- 
cialized that the men and women themselves have become almost pieces 
of mechanism. This has produced a condition in which many of our work- 
ers find no self-expression. In such a condition, men and women are 
drained dry of the impulse to create. 

Business of Its Own 

Without any false notions as to the possibilities of turning back pro- 
gress so that the day of less specialization may return, I none the less be- 
lieve that it is our duty as a whole people to see if we can not make every 
job in the country a small business of its own. No matter how simple the 
job, be sure that it plays a dignified and an essential part in our welfare. 
The man who does it must learn to realize it; and more than that, he and 
his employer must combine to make every job, no matter what it is, a 
friend of the man who does it — a friend because the man who does the 
work has learned an interest in it, so that just as if it were his particular 
individual business he may understand how he may improve that job, 
so that he may understand its unit costs, its bookkeeping, its purposes, 
its relation to other jobs, and to the whole fabric of our national produc- 
tion, and so that the job may become, as much as possible, day by day, 
an expression of a human being. 

This is our program of social justice. I have not attempted to make 
it complete; who can do so? This is my program for a department which 
as an effective government agency will further social justice. I have not 
attempted to describe it in detail. No one can describe it in detail before 
it becomes a working organization ; but I believe that I have voiced the 
conscience and the common sense of America when I say that we must 
pay new attention to the conservation of our human resources. 

Enforcement of Law 

I must not fail to speak to you today of one of the measures of social 
justice and social welfare not often catalogued in this manner, but per- 
haps more important than any we have considered. I refer to the en- 
forcement of law. It will not be my business when elected to decide what 
laws shall be. It will be legitimate for me to invoke public opinion for 
their enactment, but such a call to public opinion must be based more 
upon the duty of the Executive of the Nation to give facts to the people 

241 



taken by the Executiv "tho ^Id 0^^''''''^ ^"f ""=* "' ""^er- 
approval of the law, which it has 2enth ' f ,'"'"^' ^PP™^^'' °^ dis- 

ever your achievem^rt ^t; be n the tlrTdT. "'" '° '"^"^ ^'^«- 
principally with the AmenV=.„ V T ' ^"""^ ™"«rn, as mine, is 

we must have throLhout the I T ' ^°"' *'"' ""' *"' ^^'"'^^ 'hat 

We must al, conZt w t ^IS^ th^ \T'''T' ''""^'p'-- 
of prohibition, just as we mu tTn . M t V^""" "^ <="f°'-«ment 

authoHty to pte t outTa^s^^l'CrH 1 ^t'^/' -''^-ed 

enf:LrenTo^::^a::Z;a;ra;r"1' 1 T^--- • --'• '"^ 
and if I am to distLui^h t-T '^""'''' ' °' '''^ ^™"=''" <=°"^rience, 

the women of aS the m^rpa":":",!""""' ' "'" ^""^"'^ '° 
science. ■" P " **"= Preservation of that con- 

Faith in American Womanhood 

hood,''srm::hTo:,';detifn '^^ -t,,'""' ^^"^^ °' ^'""'-" — - 

that I do not fertl'lrfin udg'r rtr'so,' ™"T °' ^"^™^' 
thecourseof our Nation in its;ore'ig:"r:,l"ti:'„:hi;f "" '^'^^^"^"'"" » 

.ed!'but°"j?teTy"s,e"dTo t:;tzz ^irr '""^^ ^"^ -"- 

One is eihefa very brave oTaT"T'7f '^^^ "^^ ""^'"^ °"' "' -- 
favor the execution of a IrT "^i ?° "''' ™" " *°"^" ^^o would 

sources of te United srateT^n'ef"' •"' '""'^" ^"'^ '"^'"-' - 
more capable of breedin'/r t'h^ "of^t^ in^, ~'^ ,t"'f b'v'" 
in a morteared AmenVa \;\/o v, n j ^^^^ving peace. 1 do not believe 

of war-wor„':nd wa .r,n ^ropf B°ut°f" " ! f'T '" '"^ -"abi.itation 
ing in such measure and at uch tfml '" do ,t as a free-will offer- 

I do not want to out nttl !^ t, "^^ """y °"''=«'™^ determine. 

an adventur:,\rert"olThirh^1'dTheTd:;:j:rr/"^^^ ^ 
forsee. ° °' which no man can 

The Difference 

no dlff^retcf between":: inT™/" '""T"'' '"" °"^^"-^- There is 
induce America toiltirp T"" '° '"'"■ ^"' *°^^ -''° ^«k to 
body and sou W Tnd the aI"'" "°" ' '"' "' '"^'^"= ™^^^'™= 
daughters and mothers reiecfrhr "71"! "', '"*"^' =°"^' -'-"■ 
the will of others. We ntend o hoW " ' '"' ™ ^""""'^ "' 

- given, not taken, ft ir rt^eeZuTr^ ^dZhr;:: 



242 



our own hearths. Upon that principle, and because our conscience and 
our honor are still ours, I favor an association of free nations, and I care 
not what it be called or who has furnished the name. 

I know that the mothers and wives of America do not wish to give 
their sons and husbands for sacrifice at the call of an extra-constitutional 
body like the council of the Paris league. I know that the mothers and 
wives of America will give them only at the call of their own hearts, and 
honor, and conscience. 

I stand for a world association of free nations. I stand against an 
association of nations in which we will be under the flag of a world super- 
government, and no longer under the American flag. To serve mankind, 
it is not necessary to subject our country to foreclosure by the sheriff of 
internationalism. We stand for nationalism. We do not aspire to be citi- 
zens of the world. I, with the men and women of America, am proud 
that I, as long as I draw the breath of life, can say " I am an American!" 



243 



I 



V 



